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112864 | Is this cast iron pan safe to cook in?
My wife just bought this pan and I noticed this weird dark/black spot in the center with a bit of a swirl around it (never mind the brownish tint, this is due to my flax oil seasoning).
I don't care much about the looks, I'm just worried this might be unhealthy to cook in. Does anyone know what that might be?
Did this stain appear after seasoning it? Your seasoning looks quite thick and uneven, so it might even be some impurity that got stuck while seasoning.
@Johanna It was definitely there before I season it, including the swirling marks
In that case, regardless of if it's safe or mot, I would request a replacement from the store you bought if from. You're unlikely to get a smooth surface regardless of how much you season it and the seasoning will most likely just flake off around the swirl marks.
@Johanna Please feel free to add your comment in an answer so I could mark it as solved
From Johanna in the comments section:
In that case, regardless of if it's safe or mot, I would request a replacement from the store you bought if from. You're unlikely to get a smooth surface regardless of how much you season it and the seasoning will most likely just flake off around the swirl marks.
Turning the helpful comment given into an answer as comments are temporary.
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119890 | Are different pasta shapes easier/harder for factory machines to make?
This weekend, I was shopping at the grocery store and found that the Lasagna was priced at about double per pound compared to other pasta shapes. That got me wondering if different pasta shapes are more/less hard for factory machines to make, or if these prices differences have more to do with consumer preferences? Is it somehow harder to build machines that make certain shapes? Are there other considerations I am missing that might cause some pasta shapes to be costlier than others to manufacture?
Another consideration would be packing density; a pasta like orzo will pack much more densely than, say, farfalle, which will affect transport costs. For lasagne there is also the question of how much is needed in a typical portion; if you think in terms of 'cost per quantity I will use at once' this will give a different result to 'cost per mass' in cases of (say) lasagne sheets versus macaroni.
Not sure what kind of lasagna is common where you live, but often lasagna sheets are actually pre-cooked, sometimes labelled as "oven ready" or if you read the instructions it will say no pre-cooking is required, so there's more processing involved with these than standard dried pasta.
@BillyKerr oven-ready lasagna sheets are just thinner than regular ones so they have time to cook through in the oven, they aren't pre-cooked. And you can use the same technique with regular lasagna noodles, it just takes longer and you have to add a bit of liquid.
@Esther - I disagree. I've seen some that are pre-cooked, and then dried. In fact I have some in my pantry.
It's likely the handling and packing that's responsible for the higher price.
Among all the common dry pasta shapes typically sold in the grocery stores, lasagna sheets seem to be the most fragile.
Unlike many dry pastas that are kept relatively compact in plastic bags, dry lasagna sheets needs to be kept in like-shaped boxes to minimize breakage, and even then, a few sheets may get cracked from shaking around.
I'm not entirely sure if this is the main reason, but that's how I reason with it.
You could make this a complete answer by saying that the handling & packing is probably responsible for the extra cost. Which it probably is.
Yes, some shapes require more sophisticated equipment to make, and as a result those will be priced higher. Cavatappi, troife, busiate, fregola de sardo, and any kind of filled dried pasta are examples of this. Some can't really be extruded at all, some need to be extrduded slower/more carefully, and others require post-extrusion processing.
Other shapes are not actually harder to extrude or dry, but are simply obscure, and as a result are only made/imported from companies who make pasta in smaller batches, and thus price higher. Generally, this small-batch pasta is also made with better processes (bronze dies and slow drying) that makes it more expensive to produce as well. Examples of this would include casarecci, gigli, and bucatini.
Finally (per Anastasia's answer), some pastas are packed in such a way that makes them more expensive to pack, ship, and handle, which is then reflected in the sale price. This would include your lasagna noodles, as well as conchiglioni (big shells), vesuvio, and fettuccine sold in "nests".
It might be simpler to say that only "mainstream" pasta shapes that can be made quickly and cheaply and easily and tightly packed are cheap. Everything else is more expensive.
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93969 | I am cooking beef stew in the crockpot and accidentally put a little flour in the beginning not end
I am cooking a beef stew in the crockpot and instead of adding a little flour at the end I accidentally added it at the beginning. What do I do to fix this? Will it mess the stew up? There was extra broth so will it just not thicken and still cook ok?
If it's not breaking apart, you can use a cheap, coarse, colander to take care of the little flour chunks. If you're adding any tallow or butter to the stew, an easy trick is to make a roux with the flour first, then add it to the stew. By making a roux, each small bit of flour is effectively encased in a layer of yummy fatty goodness. Once you add some water or milk, it's nearly impossible for the flour to clump. Add it to the stew, and you're home-free. Best of luck!
You should be fine, as long as you mix it in thoroughly.
Flouring the beef and browning is a very common first step, so there is maybe some in there already? Any extra flour to thicken needs some time to cook or it will make the gravy feel grainy.
Stir, stir, stir, and if you see any lumps, take them out. Be careful that this does not over-thicken the broth, as that might stick and burn during the simmering time that makes stew so stewy.
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94049 | Homemade salt water taffy
Are there any techniques to aerate homemade taffy, particularly saltwater taffy.
The professional saltwater taffy makers in Atlantic City, NJ and Ocean City, NJ use machines that pull the taffy over and over. But they are making massive quantities at a time.
I need a tip, trick, hack or technique that would do the same thing, but on a smaller scale.
@RonBeyer I would say that qualifies as an answer. If you post one and ping me here, I'll come back and upvote.
To manually pull taffy, either you can stretch out the taffy between your arms by gripping one end of the taffy with each hand and extending your arms. This is extremely strenuous, and a lot of work especially when the taffy is cold or when starting.
Another option is to get a Taffy Hook, which looks like this:
It doesn't have to be anything specialized, any stainless-steel hook you can mount on the wall or temporarily attach to a surface will suffice. The idea is to hook the taffy on the loop and pull towards you or the ground, re-loop and repeat until the taffy is the desired consistency.
There are a number of home contraptions in various price ranges that work either by a motorized system or a hand-crank:
Youtube video of a hand-crank taffy puller
There are even homemade taffy pullers that you can find by searching the internet if you are more mechanically inclined.
All correct, although from personal experience I can say that pulling small amounts (a pound or less) of hot taffy at home is not that strenuous. Taffy hooks and machines are better for larger batches.
@Guildenstern Yeah, I'd say for 1lb batch or something it would be easier to do by hand, unless you had some kind of arthritis or joint issue, the hook or hand-machine may be the way to go for larger batches.
I was going to make 5 lbs.
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93997 | Potato chips lose crunch and taste within a week
We make potato chips commercially, but they lose crunch and taste within 7 days.
How can one delay or prevent potato chips from losing their crunchiness and taste?
This question is a duplicate of: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/93937/potato-chips-lose-crunch-and-taste-within-7-days?rq=1
Khuram, welcome! Please don’t post your question twice - if you want to increase the probability of getting an answer, improve the question: Many users have posted comments asking about your procedure and other clarifications. You may also want to read [ask].
How do you store/package them ?
AFAIK, commercial chips are stored in bags filled with nitrogen to prevent oxydation.
https://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/potato-chips-stay-fresh-bag/
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94196 | Cast Iron Skillet with Lid Rusted togethe
I want to use my mom's cast iron skillet which she used primarily for frying chicken but the lid is sealed/rusted/won't come off from the skillet. How can I get this lid off without breaking it?
Welcome to [cooking.se]! ;-) This is more of a [diy.se] question than a cooking question, but if it's an enamelled cast iron pot you might try submerging it upside-down in a battery acid solution overnight. (Use gloves!)
There is a product called Naval Jelly that is designed to remove rust from metal items. Its available in our area at most hardware stores. Menards has it. Use a toothbrush to work the jelly in between the lid and the skillet and let it sit for 10-15 minutes. It literally changes the rust into a water-soluable paste that you can wipe away with a clean, wet cloth. Then you will be able to season your skillet (and lid) so it can be usable again. Hope this works for you.
And for seasoning (and possibly further stripping) cast iron pans, see : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/641/67
Thanks Joe! I haven't learned how to reference previous answers yet.
At the bottom of the question or answer you want to reference, there will be a 'share' link, which will give you a URL that you can copy and paste into another question / answer / comment.
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94419 | Can I add "stars" pasta or very small soup shells pasta to boxed chicken broth & make in the microwave?
I have boxed chicken broth I want to quickly make in the microwave and I want to add either tiny stars pasta, or "small soup shells" pasta. Both pastas are tiny, about 1/4 inch width & height. I don't have a stovetop available. How can I make everything in the microwave, preferably together/all at once? I would like a way to make about a quart at a time, including pasta, about 2-3 servings, maybe a quarter cup of pasta... I never made either of these pasta forms so don't know how big they will expand so I'm thinking a couple Tablespoons to a quarter cup dried pasta.
Thanks for any help!
Welcome! Is your goal to have a soup with pasta in it, or just end up with pasta with very little broth remaining?
My intention was to have a soup with more liquid volume than noodles, but when I talked to Chinese restaurants they put TEN wontons in a quart container of wonton soup. If you took out 5 wontons, the broth barely covers the remaining 5 wontons.
i's put the pasta in regular water and microwave them for a couple of minutes; try 3, 4 minutes and adjust for doneness.
Once they are done, add them to the already heated up soup.
Is there a reason not to cook it in broth? That can help boost the flavor of the pasta, and also mean less cooking time overall.
I find it better to cook in the broth, then add back some water if it soaks up too much
Thanks @GloriaZ and everybody; I'm not sure of the proportions but I'll save the shells for a soup that has more ingrredients and try the stars first, maybe 3/4 cup to 2 cups of broth. I also intend to add rotisserie chicken, I have about half a quart bag of breast meat. I'll tear some up, maybe 1/2 cup per quart of soup? I'm not used to how things work here, I've made a couple other comments before I saw the @ directions...
Great idea! And yes, I add chicken broth/stock to replace water in many things. You may need additional seasoning, but just like the previous answer above, you just need to bring the liquid to a boil in the microwave, so 5-6 minutes should do it! I would leave the pasta to rest for a couple minutes extra to ensure it absorbed enough broth to become tender.
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105503 | Chicken or quail have black or dark red spots on the meat
Is this normal?
I've got about 10 quail meats and some of them have these spots.
Are these safe to cook and eat? Is it possible that they had a disease or were infected?
I'm scared of Coronavirus, and chickens and quails can carry influenza and Coronavirus is a type of influenza, so could this be related?
I've googled a lot but I can't find anything on it:
"Quail red OR black OR dark spot on meat"
etc.
My question is not a duplicate of: red spots on the chicken
Coronavirus is not a foodborne disease. You don't need to fear your food.
They do believe that it initially infected humans through meat from a "wet" market, where fresh meat is sold near the living animals. That's not the primary or most worrisome means of transmission, but worth acknowledging.
Coronavirus is not a type of influenza, these are different categories of virus although the symptoms of infection are similar. Poultry can contract a specific kind of influenza that in rare cases can transmit to humans ("Bird Flu"). The exact origin of the current coronavirus outbreak is currently unknown - a market in Wuhan is suspected but some reports indicate there were early infections with no connection to the market.
It's just clotted blood.
Quail is a far more game-y meat than chicken meaning there is much more muscle and you end up with a lot of dark meat. You get the same with truly free range chickens.
This is nothing to worry about and I have never seen a quail which doesn't look like that.
Source: My mum had a poultry farm.
Yep. I have friends who hunt. It seems all game birds have that too.
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94814 | Why do my Gnocchi get sticky?
I am having trouble getting my gnocchi to behave properly. I nailed the recipe a few years ago but haven't made any in between and now they turn out sticky after cooking.
The dough behaves wonderfully. During cooking the gnocchi come to the surface as usual, I take them out, drop them in some sage butter and that's where they all stick together as one lump.
This is my method:
Bake potatoes
Peel while very warm
Rice
Add 10% flour (I also tried 20%, 25% and 30% - no change, 30% only made the dough fall apart)
Add salt and nutmeg
Knead gently
Roll, cut, shape ridges
Cook in boiling water
There is no egg in my recipe. Back then I did not use any and I have had plenty of amazing gnocchi without egg and in my experience egg tends to make gnocchi rather chewy.
I am aiming for a very light texture with just the right bite on the outside, as though there was an extremely thin skin on the outside.
That's actually almost what I get before cooking the gnocchi. What I am getting after cooking are very soft and sticky gnocchi with good flavour but they just don't have the right texture.
The dough in this recipe is a pleasure to work with. I am using waxy potatoes because the dough from starchy ones just falls apart.
Maybe that is the key to my problem: We had an extremely dry summer in Europe and potatoes do not behave as usual - I keep hearing that from my potato farmer as well as chefs.
Can you explain why this happens?
related https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/90375/home-made-beet-gnocchi-is-sticky?rq=1
Potatoes gnocchi are indeed sensitive to potatoes in a very unpredictable way. Why do not try two batches at once? Potatoes from the farmer and potatoes from a wide market or so? At least you could see differences
Apparantly that's what I'm going to have to do.
I made gnocchi for 2 years at restaurant... in those two years i observed to following things about making gnocchi.
the type of potato Changed the ratio of flour, and egg if using egg.
As i am living in the Southern Arizona. I settled on using the Classic 1 lbs Russet Potato.
the size of the potato and how long and at what temperature you bake it... I have tried everything from purple fingerling potatoes to Sweet potato. they key i found was to try and cook them in a way that they released as much moisture as possible... I settled on baking my potato whole at 425 degrees F, lightly oiled, for 45 minutes in a convection oven on High Fan. when they were done, i would cut them in half for ricing and let them cool for 10-15 minutes, this would allow for the potatoes to release a lot of steam/moisture.
Getting my ratios right...I tried everything under the sun....i settled on a 1:1:1 ratio i found in an old Italian cook book... that would be 1 lbs riced potato, 1 egg yolk, and 1 cup flour....I did use rice flour on occasion if there was a gluten free customer...they were a little weird but not to bad. The key was not to mix more than you had to.
cooking/storage... as i was producing 50 portions 1 per week. I would toss the portions lightly in flour then freeze in deli containers, then boil off and toss in a pan sage butter similar to what you do. I seamed to work... as we had 8 different line cooks who mad this meal sometime there would be circumstances like your where they would stick together into a Gnoccho...Large Lump... i found this was mainly because they did not change out the water they were being cooked in... or the water was too salty, boiling temp lowers when salt is added.
any way... hope this helped....
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94861 | How do I get rid of smells and tastes leaching into other cookies when stored together for gifts?
how to prevent cookies picking up the smell and taste of other cookies when storing together - Like Mint or Peanu Butter that makes all the other cookies taste like them.
The only way you're going to accomplish that is to (shrink)-wrap them individually or to put small hermetically sealed tin or plastic boxes inside a larger box...
Mint is just too powerful not to leach into everything and that's why the professionals:
shrink-wrap them individually or per type
sell a box per type ("Chocolate cookies", "fruit cookies" , ...)
Sorry: probably not what you wanted to hear...
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103271 | What does "set aside for x hours" imply?
I'm following a recipe for making chutney and one of the steps is "Set aside for 24 hours". Does this mean in the fridge? If not, then does it just not matter?
I was going to leave it in the fridge overnight, since the recipe doesn't specify.
You leave it at whatever temperature is adequate for the food (or stage of food) that is left aside.
If you are canning your chutney, then all stages before going into the canner need refrigeration, and all stages after getting out of the canner are safe at room temperature. So, if the recipe wants it to be done before canning, you have to put it in the refrigerator.
If it is after the canning, there is a twist. For most shelf-stable foods, there is nothing wrong with leaving them in the refrigerator instead of outside. But if the "leave aside" step in your case comes immediately after canning, then its purpose is to ensure the proper seal. For that, you should best leave it under the conditions that it will be exposed to in the long term, that is, outside.
Perfect, thank you! It's a before-canning step, so into the fridge it goes.
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94882 | How to tell if preserved chillis are still good?
I grew dozens more chillis than I was able to use this year so rather than throw them away I preserved them in a mason jar. I didn't have a lot of time to do it so I looked online and an article (which I can't find now) said I could just preserve them in vodka - I cleaned the mason jar with boiling water, washed, chopped and de-seeded and de-stemmed the chillis, then put them in and covered them in vodka.
They've been sitting for around a month now (I haven't had much cause to use them yet) and the other day I moved the jar and the liquid inside splashed up to the top and I noticed that some of it escaped past the rubber seal. So now I'm kinda worried that the jar isn't sealed properly and that instead of being preserved they're just rotting in there.
Is there any way to tell for sure? They don't smell anything other than spicy.
In future you may want to consider not de-seeding them - doing so will make them less hot (unless that is your intention). If you buy preserved chillies from the store (e.g. dried, in jars, chilli flakes, etc.) you will notice they usually have the seeds intact.
Alcohol is a disinfectant, so any bacteria sitting around for a month in vodka have been thoroughly killed...
The only thing to worry about is that if some of the chillies were not completely submerged all of the time, you might have a slight problem. The symptoms to look for is discolouring: look for brown / black spots / extremities.
If not: no worries: they're still good.
Thanks! I was hoping this would be the case. One has been bobbing at the surface occasionally but I give them a shake to keep them all well-covered.
Just remember to throw them out after about 25 years. Theoretically, they could still be fine, but chances are you won't be there to throw them out after 50 years. Always a good idea to write the date on these jars.
@Peter Have a look at the original
As Fabby notes in their answer, alcohol is an excellent preservative. As long as your peppers are fully submerged, it's extremely unlikely that they could rot or spoil in any way. (If they aren't, there's a risk that mold or something could grow on the exposed parts, but even that's fairly low if all the surfaces have been at least temporarily in contact with to the vodka.)
What might be a bigger concern is that capsaicin, the chemical that makes chili peppers taste hot, is soluble in alcohol. After soaking the peppers in vodka for a month, it's likely that a significant fraction of the hotness and flavor has diffused from the peppers into the liquid, leaving you with a jar of chili-infused vodka and some noticeably less-hot-than-before peppers.
Not that that's necessarily a bad thing at all, mind you. There's lots of tasty things you can make with chili-flavored vodka, and the peppers themselves might be just the thing for something that calls for something a little softer and less spicy than they'd be when fresh. But something you should keep in mind when deciding what to use them for.
I was planning to use the peppers for texture and a little of the juice from the jar for the kick. :)
Smart man @Kieran ;-)
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95044 | Substitute for Accent Seasoning
My recipe calls for 1-teaspoon of Accent and I do not have this ingredient, as they were out of it at my grocery store. Is there a good substitute?
What are you making? Accent is essentially monosodium glutimate. Glutimates are naturally occurring in many ingredients. With a specific dish in mind we can offer more precise feedback.
Depending on the other seasoning, you might be able to swap those out for a seasoning blend that includes those and includes MSG.
Accent seasoning seems to be mostly Monosodium Glutamate (MSG). You can try to find another MSG-type seasoning in your normal store (I don't know what brands might be available where you are so just look for things with MSG as the main ingredient), find pure MSG which is sometimes available in Asian grocery stores, or you could just add a cube of bouillon or two to help round out the flavour a bit.
MSG basically tastes a little salty and helps make the flavour fuller or more intense. Bouillon does the same thing, so it would be an acceptable substitute in most dishes.
Many supermarkets in the US ships Sazón GOYA, which is a MSG plus spices mix with the caveat that it tends to dye food red to orange.
"Accent Seasoning" is Monosodium Glutamate (MSG): It looks like salt and is predominantly and originally, but not exclusively, used in Chinese & other East Asian cuisine. It's a 'flavour enhancer' in the same way salt is and has a similar but not identical purpose.
Look for an unbranded variety (supermarket's own, etc). It's very much like salt & isn't much more expensive unless it has a brand name attached to it.
There is nothing "special" about branded versions, like buying a brand name at $£€ 3.00 instead of supermarket paracetamol for $£€ 0.30
If you can't find MSG, regular salt will do at a push, [though it is not the same], at about 1:1 ratio... though to be wise, start with less. You can always add more at the end, you can't take any back out.
Accent also contains other ingredients, including chili pepper, cumin, and oregano. But, yes, perhaps the most important ingredient is indeed the MSG.
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96554 | Microwaving M&Ms produces sparks
Last week I microwaved some peanut butter M&Ms for 40 seconds, which is something I've done hundreds of times before to melt the chocolate on the inside. However, when I did it this time, there was some popping and then a big spark inside. There was no metal in the microwave, the bowl is microwave safe, but it did have a chip in it. I also left the M&Ms uncovered, while I usually cover them with a paper towel. Any idea what caused this? Someone elsewhere suggested this paper might be an explanation but I would think it would have happened before if that was the case.
Was the quantity (approximately) the same as before?
@ChrisH Yes, roughly a handful.
Grape is the usual object to demonstrate this effect: https://www.thenakedscientists.com/get-naked/experiments/grape-plasmas CD's and lit candles covered by glass bowls are fun as well.
@WayfaringStranger, true, and I'd think the index of refraction would be significantly different in a combination of chocolate and peanut butter than in a grape, which may not cause mostly internal reflection. Maybe the shell is made of ingredients that would cause the sparks?
@HS-nebula I think the shell is some form of hard sugar, which would be a lot different than the chocolatey innards. I Could be wrong about that, but its early right now, and I can't do a search until coffee hits. -I've never looked up the coating recipe.
Off the top of my head I would say the sparking and popping is unexpected: usually a significant of water content would need to be present for this kind of behavior, as water conducts electricity and everything else not so much. There is water in peanut butter, but it is around 1-2% and is emulsified with fat, and that should reduce the conductivity substantially. But, the voltages inside a microwave oven are quite high and could force a conductive path through the emulsion to cause sparking.
My best guess is that whoever makes M&Ms (can't remember now) changed their peanut butter formulation and used slightly more water. It is batch specific?
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95421 | Where To Buy A Garlic Crusher?
Sorry for taking up your time. Just wondering if anyone knows where i can buy a garlic crusher from?
I want to cook some Italian food, but every Thai person i ask has no idea what a garlic crusher is. I looked at Hicorfe, any other place i can try?
This is my friend's garlic press. Any ideas or suggestions?
Cheers.
Any kitchen store? amazon? Look for "garlic press".
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is a shopping question, therefore localized and with a limited shelf life.
If all you want to do is cook Italian food and you want to use fresh garlic, crushing the garlic with the flat of a knife and then mincing it finely will get you through the night without a special shopping trip.
Nearly any store that sells kitchen accessories should have multiple garlic presses to choose from. Knowing the country in which you reside could help, but examples include all of the following options.
Kitchen Supply Stores
Happy Kitchen (physical)
Cook's Direct (online)
General-Purpose Stores
Amazon (online)
EBay (online)
Target (physical & online)
Grocery Stores often have overpriced kitchen accessories as a convenience to their shoppers, garlic presses included.
Safeway (physical)
Whole Foods (physical)
This makes a big assumption that isn't justified by the question: There are strong hints that the OP isn't in the US (as all your offline and 1/3 of your online sources are) and nothing to suggest they are in the US.
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121708 | Food safety when making Koji rice / kojikin
I want to understand the process by which koji rice is not effected by Bacillus Cereus et.al.
The basic instructions for fermenting your own koji rice is:
Steam rice
Let it cool to around 35℃
Inoculate with Aspergillus Oryzae
Keep the rice warm (34-36℃) for ~5 days
Occasionally separate and aerate the rice grains during this time.
Some government food safety sites report issues with bacterial-caused toxicity if cooked rice is not cooled quickly before storage. Obviously the fermentation procedure above purposefully keeps the cooked rice at a high room temperature.
Koji rice is often used in situations where it is not re-cooked (e.g.: Amazake, Sake). Millions of people eat koji rice derived products every day without issue, so one must infer that it is a safe product.
Is there some biochemical process caused by the fungal growth of A.Oryzae that is preventing the growth of B.Cereus ?
Further reading: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/food-science/koji
I'd guess that it's a combination of acidification and breakdown of the rice starches, but I don't have references.
Why are you asking for "a biochemical process"? You seem to be hunting for a single reason, which likely doesn't exist. If you throw around a few orange seeds into a beech forest, you won't get an orange grove, not because there is a biochemical reaction, but because the environment is not suitable to be overtaken by the new species. This is how all fermentation works, you just fill the environmental niche with whatever you need, and so the usual pathogens can't get a foothold.
@rumtscho "Outcompetition by the desired culture which fills the environmental niche" certainly sounds like the "bio" part of a "biochemical process" to me.
@dbmag9 the word "biochemical" has a set meaning, actually. An example for a biochemical process would be glycolysis. I don't know if some biochemical process is prominent in the competition between A.Oryzae and B.Cereus, but statistically, that would be a rather unlikely case. The competition itself is, of course, matter of biology, as you pointed out :) but it would be classically studied by microbiologists and food technologists, not by biochemists.
@rumtscho - Well if we were discussing fermentation of say wine/beer, I would answer with something like: "The yeast removes oxygen an acidifies the liquid, making the environment unsuitable to other microorganisms.". To me, that's a biochemical process. If "biochemical" is a reserved word, we can edit it to something else. Do you have a suggestion?
@Kingsley there is no pressure on you to change the wording, especially since you already got a very nice answer. To give a background explanation on my earlier comments: in the meaning you just explained, "biochemical" does indeed apply, but it is vacuous. Everything that microbes do is a biochemical process, so asking if there is a bc process within A.Oryzae that changes the environment is tautological, and not interesting. I had interpreted your question as whether A.Oryzae causes a novel biochemical process in B.Cereus (which is almost never the case), and, interpreted generously...
... to ask if A.Oryzae is in some way "intentionally" interfering with existing bc processes in B.Cereus - which is much more common, but still on the rare side as opposed to just living and metabolizing, and as a side effect changing the general parameters of the environment, as in your wine example. Now borcymcfood wrote that in this specific case, there is indeed such targeted secretion of antimicrobial compounds, which do disturb bc processes in B.Cereus. The whole thing is mostly a language/philosophical nitpick, which luckily shouldn't prevent an answer.
The biochemical processes for A. oryzae inhibiting the growth of B. cereus involves the production of a range of metabolites that exert antimicrobial properties [1,2,3,4]:
"The exAP-AO17 protein strongly inhibited pathogenic microbial strains, including pathogenic fungi, Fusarium moniliform var. subglutinans and Colletotrichum coccodes, and showed antibacterial activity against bacteria, including E. coli O157 and Staphylococcus aureus." [1] Park et al.
"Besides its potent secretion machinery, A. oryzae is a generous source of various secondary metabolites [...]. Many of the metabolites secreted by A. oryzae have different reported bioactivities such as anticancer, cytotoxicity, antimicrobial, antihypertensive, and antiviral activities (Table 2)." [2] Daba et al.
Table of metabolites from Daba et al.
A mutated strain of A. oryzae also produced an unknown compound with antimicrobial effect, suggesting antimicrobial potential outside of the stable domesticated strains:
"Over 3000 EMS-treated, putative mutant A. oryzae cultures were tested in the described screening assay for antibacterial activity. A single EMS-treated A. oryzae isolate, named CAL220, exhibited antibacterial activity in the screening assay as indicated by complete lack of visible MRSA growth in the assay." [3] Leonard et al.
As you're aware, Koji itself is an inoculum rich in enzymes for further fermentation of soy and grains, but also contains easily digestible sugars derived from A. oryzae breaking down the rice [4]. Combined with the near-neutral pH (>6) throughout and increasing at the end of fermentation [5], Koji would be very hospitable to B. cereus without the antimicrobial metabolites. As only a relatively small amount of Koji is used for the second stage of fermentation, the concentration and effect of these metabolites is diluted, hence the need for added salt for pathogen inhibition for this stage.
Figure of pH over time from Chancharoonpong et al.
Given the innumerable regional strains of A. oryzae in koji manufacture, and other species of fungi involved, there are countless other undocumented metabolite compounds that we're only beginning to identify - and biochemists outside of the
field of food technology are very interested in these as well. [6]
But to simplify things, yes, there is a single (group of) biochemical process responsible for A. oryzae outcompeting B. cereus, and it's the production of antimicrobial compounds.
[1] Isolation and Characterization of an Extracellular Antimicrobial Protein from Aspergillus oryzae.
Seong-Cheol Park, Nae Choon Yoo, Jin-Young Kim, Hae Kyun Park, Byung Jo Chae, Song Yub Shin, Hyeonsook Cheong, Yoonkyung Park, and Kyung-Soo Hahm.
https://doi.org/10.1021/jf802373h
[2] The ancient koji mold (Aspergillus oryzae) as a modern biotechnological tool.
Ghoson M. Daba, Faten A. Mostafa & Waill A. Elkhateeb.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40643-021-00408-z
[3] Random Mutagenesis of the Aspergillus oryzae Genome Results in Fungal Antibacterial Activity.
Cory A. Leonard, Stacy D. Brown, and J. Russell Hayman.
https://doi.org/10.1155%2F2013%2F901697
[4] Fermentation and the microbial community of Japanese koji and miso: A review.
Joanne G. Allwood Lara T. Wakeling David C. Bean.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.15773
[5] Enzyme Production and Growth of Aspergillus oryzae S. on Soybean Koji Fermentation.
Chuenjit Chancharoonpong, Pao-Chuan Hsieh, Shyang-Chwen Sheu
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apcbee.2012.06.011
[6] Medical Application of Substances Derived from Non-Pathogenic Fungi Aspergillus oryzae and A. luchuensis-Containing Koji.
Hiroshi Kitagaki.
https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fjof7040243
Great Answer! Reference [4] is a good read too.
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117779 | Techniques for using (Polish) Pickle Pots?
I have a pair of Polish Pickle Pots, something like this:
But when I use them, I am yet to get good results. Mainly I've tried using them for sauerkraut (maybe 6 times), pickled beetroot (once) and miso (once). But always the content goes mouldy.
Even with plenty enough brine from the content, and the stones hold the cabbage below the brine level, then the stones themselves go mouldy (black mould).
Is there something I'm missing? My pickles in plastic, with water-filled bottles or other plastic bags as weights never seem to have the same trouble.
Is there a special technique for using these pots?
Is it mandatory to fill the air-lock around the lid (I do)? With water?
Do any of these questions answer your question about preventing mold? https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/43419/7180 https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/29382/7180
Since part of the problem is probably that the pot and weights are "infected" with mold spores, one thing I would suggest is heat-sterilizing the pot and the weights to eliminate any spores that might be embedded in the raw clay of the weights or any cracks in the glaze.
Here's how:
Place the pot, lid, and weights in a cold oven
Heat the oven to 180C/350F and keep it there for at least 1/2 hour
Allow the pot, lid, and weights to cool slowly, possibly by leaving them in the oven while it cools
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95518 | Freeze dried blueberries vs frozen blueberries?
What can I substitute for freeze dried blueberries? Will frozen blueberries work? This is for a bread filling.
I'm not sure what you mean by a bread filling—is it something you spread between layers of bread, or a bread mixture that you put into a bird before roasting, or a baked item like muffins? I'd use different substitutions depending on the recipe.
No, they aren't a direct substitute. Freeze dried blueberries are very dry and will absorb moisture from the dough in order to re-hydrate, frozen ones are not dried or dehydrated at all so will add water to the dough.
They also have a very different consistency: thawed from frozen blueberries will be squishy and tend to get blended into the dough, dried blueberries are tough little beasties and will hold together much better. You may be able to get around that by keeping the berries frozen and working them in at the last minute - keep in mind most frozen blueberries will have lots of water ice mixed in which you don't want.
If you want to use frozen then you'll need to account for the extra moisture in the blueberries, taking the right amount of water out of the recipe. This site says:
Dehydrating them naturally, we can use up to 7 pounds of blueberries
to make 1 pound of dehydrated blueberries.
This means that blueberries lose about 85% of their weight when dried, so if the recipe calls for 100g of dried blueberries you'd need to add 700g of frozen ones and take 600g of water (600ml because 1ml of water = 1g) out of the recipe. If you are using volume measurements then this site says 80g of freeze dried = 2¼ US Cups.
Additions to GdD: You likely would get a very different look and taste even if accounting for liquid and volume.
The freeze dried berries are going to usually be more concentrated in flavor, giving more a berry pop I would call it when eaten. Fresh or frozen, not so. As you mix and cook there flavor will spread along with the juice and you will loose that burst of flavor and instead get a subtler, more spread out flavor in all likelihood. It could even be lost in the overall bread flavor.
Second, the freeze dried are basically encapsulated, and unless you actively re-hydrate them first should not overly react with the rest of the dough. Along with keeping the flavor concentrated, this should mostly keep the color there too. With fresh berries you with get breakage and leaking and tend to color your dough with smears of blue/purple that many people would find off-putting. Frozen would be worse on this as blueberries I have always found to be one of the fruits especially prone to freezer cell damage. As soon as they start to thaw they start giving off large amounts of juice. This will not only spread the flavor, it will heavily stain the dough during mixing, rise and baking.
I personally would not be off-put by the color, but many would and appearance is often an important part of eating experience. They are some complication in addition to throwing a wrench into the liquid ratios of the recipe though.
You would likely find dried - regular dried, I mean - to be a better substitute than frozen... and also possibly more easily available than freeze-dried.
There would still be a difference, regular dried tend to have more moisture remaining, s'why they're a bit more flexible and chewy while freeze dried are more brittle, but the difference would be much smaller. Both will be mostly inert in the dough, and sturdy to survive mixing, both will absorb moisture from the dough, both will give the final product a studded appearance (as opposed to blotched). Freeze dried will absorb a bit more moisture, and will be more brittle, more likely to disintegrate when being eaten rather than stay chewy lil nubs.
Now that I'm thinking of it, I wonder if it might be possible to dry the frozen - it would take enough time and effort it likely wouldn't be worth it if there were any alternatives at all, but possible maybe. One could lay them out somewhere warm and airy, and wait for them to first thaw, then dry. I'd guess it'd be on the messy side, too, the juice would drip a bit more, since the cell walls are broken from freezing.
That might make them, once dried, more brittle like the (properly) freeze dried ones are, but I don't know if there are other relevant parts of the freeze-drying process that would effect the final texture - the timing and other things.
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95619 | Why is the middle of this sweet potato dark?
This is a red-skinned white-fleshed sweet potato. I don't know what kind. I have never tried one before, I have only had the orange kind.
The outside looked OK. There were no black spots or damaged areas. The inside had this darkness all through the middle. It was not soft or pithy and did not smell bad.
What is it? Mold? Fusarium?
Probably just random discoloration. If the texture and smell is the same as the rest of the potato, then I'd just use it.
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95684 | Convert weight of Confectioners sugar to caster sugar
If a recipe asks for 50g of confectioners sugar, what is the weight required in caster sugar. I am making a no bake cheesecake
In general in recipes measuring by weight, you can use the same weight, as 50g of one kind of thing is usually the same amount as 50g of another kind of the same thing (in this case sugar). With volume measurements this is not the case, as certain kinds of things will pack into the measuring cup differently (flour is notorious for packing, for instance, and no two cups ever seem to come out the same).
In your specific case, however, a direct substitution may mot work as desired. Confectioners or powdered sugar often has a small amount of cornstarch mixed with the sugar to prevent clumping. Its possible that a no-bake style cheesecake recipe may be relying on that, so you may want to substitute a few grams of cornstarch for some of your caster sugar. I would try 45g sugar and 5g cornstarch.
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95973 | Why does my dumpling /dimsum/momos turn dark brown while steaming?
We make dumplings by bun making machine. (bought from China.)
We add all purpose flour, xanthan gum and water to make the dough for dumpling.
We make 10 varieties of dumpling and filling varies as per the variety. After making the dumplings, we half steam and sell it to the market. When we half steam at our kitchen, everything if fine.
But some of our dumplings turns pale yellow when our client resteams at their sale point. If steamed more, it turns into dark brown colour.
What could be the problem?
Also, our dumplings breaks too much. What can be done?
Welcome to Seasoned Advice SE. :)
Do you know what steamer (and materials) your client use?
That dark brown looks like burning. Is it running too hot on the clients side?
Based on the color, it looks like your dumplings might be exposed to too high a heat on a surface that could actually sear them (that metal pan for example). It also looks like those dumplings might be overcrowded and being handled too much so that they'd break.
If it's possible, I'd see what your clients are doing to prepare the dumplings you send them and make sure it's not an issue with their technique.
If it's steamed like in the top photo in the question, pot is definitely overcrowded and it would explain everything you mention in your answer.
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117507 | Clean non sterilized jar, bell pepper in a water-vinegar (50% to 50% ratio) with 3% salt brine; botulism risk?
After searching different websites I didn't find a clear answer to my doubts:
noticed that while searching pickling mostly I got results referring to canning - is pickling a type of canning?
my actual question was whether it is needed to sterilize jars before pickling;
My pickling brine was a 50% water and 50% vinegar with 3% of salt;
I boiled the brine and then filled the whole jar with the boiling liquid, then sealing it.
After it cooled down to room temperature, I placed it to the fridge.
Most websites seem to blame old recepies where ratio of vinegar was too low;
but nevertheless other suggest to boil jars for 45 minutes;
in youtube mostly they suggest to just have them clean.
Just want to be safe so wondering if someone with more expertise can advice.
Use a pH strip, botulism risk is mitigated below 4.6 pH. If you are a little above it, add more vinegar.
Per WHO:
C. botulinum will not grow in acidic conditions (pH less than 4.6), and therefore the toxin will not be formed in acidic foods (however, a low pH will not degrade any pre-formed toxin). Combinations of low storage temperature and salt contents and/or pH are also used to prevent the growth of the bacteria or the formation of the toxin.
Source: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/botulism
So basically if the toxin is already present it won't kill it, but it will prevent it from forming. You're probably fine, but best thing for you to do is to follow proper canning methods by heating the Pickle jar to over 240F via a pressure canner then the toxin will be nullified.
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96081 | Green spots on bullseye egg
I cooked some bulls eye eggs with some onion, and after cooking there was some green stain on the albumen, but not before cooking, therefore I wonder what it might be. I thought it could have come from the onion but just a hypothesis.
I'm assuming clean pan, no green die/residue, transfering to the egg whites. In which case green spots would consider mold/bacterial contamination based on this, in which case "DO NOT EAT".
However if the whites are cloudy or overall green tint would be safe caused by vitamin B2. If you are getting fresh high quality eggs, this would be more likely.
Sorry I couldn't locate any good images to help out here, Green Eggs and Ham is really messing up the image search.
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117444 | Fermenting Peppers in brine with 1 table spoon salt to 0.9 L Jar, too low salt? Botulism risk?
I have fermented some peppers, but after doing so, I started to doubt the ratio of salt might be too low;
I used 1 table spoon of salt, for a jar of 0.9 L; does this create a safe environment against botulism?
It has been about a week, and there some big bubbles floating to the top
The amount of salt in a tablespoon will vary quite a bit depending on the type and coarseness of the salt. Are you able to weigh a tablespoon of the salt you used?
@Sneftel not really unfortunately
@Sneftel I think the amount of salt would correspond between 1.5% to 2%
A brine like that will not by itself prevent bacteria such as clostridium botulinum from growing. But that’s not a problem. For lacto-fermented vegetables, it is rather the acidity which makes a hostile environment. Lactic fermentation is quite dependable and safe; if things go wrong, they will go obviously wrong (rotten smell, colorful mold everywhere), not silent-and-deadly wrong.
ok, so I can tell you results after a week: I can see bubbles, and the smell of the pepper is like enhanced, like there were more peppers in the jar, it is stronger than normal smell of pepper, and actually I tasted it (one hour ago), and was quite salty taste... what would you say?
I would say, lactic fermentation is quite dependable and safe.
The standard is 6 - 10 percent salt to water. As a general rule of thumb 8 percent for veggies is my goto ratio. This means 80 grams of salt per liter of water. You can add 50 ml of vinegar if you desire but it is optional. A very important point to note is that different brands of salt vary greatly in volume, so you must weigh the salt. Also do use fine salt, it is just more suitable for brines.
wow, but this percent will be too salty, how do you manage to balance the salty taste afterwards?
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96120 | Can I make Ricotta Impastata?
Trying to make homemade canollis. Have tried a half dozen different ways, with some success. I recently found an Italian eatery that sells canolli filling in their refrigerated section. This is the exact taste I have been trying to duplicate for months! The first ingredient says “Ricotta Impastatta”...so I think that’s what I need to find. Haven’t found it in any local grocery store or Italian deli. Wondering if I can make this myself somehow since I can’t find it. Help!
Possible duplicate of Impastata Ricotta for Cannoli
@moscafj, I would mark it a duplicate except that the other question doesn't answer the question of "what is ricotta impestata". So I'm going to answer that, and not mark it as a duplicate.
Ricotta Impestata is apparently ricotta that has been drained and pressed through a fine mesh. So, while you can order it online, you can also make it yourself by first draining or blotting the ricotta using paper towels or cheesecloth, and then by pressing it through a tight-mesh strainer. Personally, I would do the draining but not the pressing, as the latter would be a lot of work and probably not make that much of a difference.
Also, having just made proper whey ricotta not 2 hours ago, I suspect that what the "impestata" process duplicates is the texture of fine whey ricotta, which is quite smooth and creamy compared with whole milk ricotta. So if you make cheese anyway, try making whey ricotta and draining it thouroughly, and that may give you the texture you're looking for.
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96273 | After full reseasoning of my cast iron, eggs are still sticking
Hey there Cast Iron pros,
I've liked my cast iron but it hasn't been very non-stick. When making eggs, even with oil and a good hot heat before adding to pan, eggs will stick to the pan. I'm hoping to get a great non-stick finish that eggs (or anything else) won't stick to.
I fully reseasoned my pans doing the following:
Full removal of seasoning via self-clean mode in oven for 3 hours.
Cleaned out dust and scrubbed some more with steel wool and salt, then washed cleanly.
Heated to 200F then added coatings
Add a small amount of flax seed oil to pan, rub very thinly over pan, and bake for 1 hour at 400F
Repeat step 4 adding new coats 5 times.
After I did all this the pans were looking pretty good, nice clean finish, but there were still a few bumps and imperfections in the pans. I tried making some eggs and they stuck as they had before. It's not terrible, but not great non-stick either.
I'm very curious for suggestions: do my pans just have scratches and bumps in them from years of use and these (even with a good seasoning) cause stickiness?
Is there something else I can try to get a great non-stick finish on these pans?
Photos:
Clean Pan:
Pan after making eggs:
"It's not terrible, but not great non-stick either." - that's exactly how cast iron pans behave. You can make good eggs in them with proper technique and enough oil, but they are not as non-stick as Teflon.
Different oils will give a different quality of 'non-stick'. There's a big push for high-iodine oils like flax seed for a very durable coating, but there are some that will be sticky when cold but slick when heated up. Unfortunately, I don't know what oil it was (and my re-seasoning it has lost that quality)
I always tend to cook my eggs on low/medium heat with a lid. Try cooking on a lower temp. Mine only stick when my pan is too hot
I have a similar (but not the same) frying pan. Your problem is, most likely, a lack of heat, not a lack of seasoning.
I always set my frying pan, empty, on a low/medium fire. When it starts to come to temperature, I raise the temperature to high. [If I have something else to cook, I do that before cooking eggs. This way, I make sure the iron is hot]. When the iron is hot enough, the eggs should not stick.
Learning how to controle the temperature of the pan is quite the process, and I have had eggs sticking to my pan at times... and I used to be a professional cook. Just saying.
The Leidenfrost effect is your friend. See this question as well.
My two cents. After seasoning I fried bacon a few times. Just to use it with something self lubricating that will not stick on itself.
Second thing is, I don't know if you tilted the pan for the shot but it look like your oven is slightly tilted toward you so when you heat it oil will run "down". So before adding anything to the pan give a mix so the oil will be evenly distributed
Most probably your problem is that when you seasoned your cast iron skillet with the flaxseed oil, the temperature that you "baked" it in the oven was too low. You need to get it high enough to polymerize the oils.
It sounds like you almost followed the original instructions correctly -
Strip your pan down to the iron using the techniques I describe in my popover post. Heat the pan in a 200°F oven to be sure it’s bone dry and to open the pores of the iron a little. Then put it on a paper towel, pour a little flaxseed oil on it (don’t forget to shake the bottle), and rub the oil all over the pan with your hands, making sure to get into every nook and cranny. Your hands and the pan will be nice and oily.
Now rub it all off. Yup – all. All. Rub it off with paper towels or a cotton cloth until it looks like there is nothing left on the surface. There actually is oil left on the surface, it’s just very thin. The pan should look dry, not glistening with oil. Put the pan upside down in a cold oven. Most instructions say to put aluminum foil under it to catch any drips, but if your oil coating is as thin as it should be, there won’t be any drips.
Turn the oven to a baking temperature of 500°F (or as high as your oven goes – mine only goes to 450°F) and let the pan preheat with the oven. When it reaches temperature, set the timer for an hour. After an hour, turn off the oven but do not open the oven door. Let it cool off with the pan inside for two hours, at which point it’s cool enough to handle.
Chemistry of Cast Iron Seasoning: A Science-Based How-To
If your oven goes higher than 400, then you should have cranked it up. For seasoning, it doesn't matter if the oil smokes, that's fine since you're altering the physical structure of the oil, not cooking food in it at this time.
Ok, I'm going to try this! Do you think I need to do this multiple times at 500F?
Yes, you still need to add the thin layers, repeatedly, but the higher heat will allow the oil to polymerize. Like I said, it looks like you were doing everything you were supposed to, except for the temperature.
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96352 | Pasta sticks to rolling cutters
Recipe : Three cups AP flour, three or four eggs depending on their size.
This recipe used to work for my little hand crank pasta machine, but lately wont. The pasta that results doesn't stick to itself. The noodles don't fuse and mush together. They stick only to the metal of the cutters themselves, and wont come loose, then double up on themselves. I've tried to separate them from the cutters, but I can only get in a half crank before almost doubling up again. And it doesn't stick to the rollers so long as I keep it dusted.
I hand roll it to lengthen it a bit, then press it flat. After that I run it through the rollers, dusting a bit as I roll it thinner. Then I dust it one last time and run it through the rolling cutters.
Will extra humidity do this? Do pasta machines just get sticky? I've tried flower and oil on the cutters, but neither seems to help. Also I like to make the sheets very thin. Any help would be appreciated.
If you've put oil and flour on your roller, that could be a big problem. The oil will cause the flour to stick and create a big mess over time. Beyond that, what is your process for making the dough? Do you allow it to rest and hydrate before attempting to roll?
When you cut the noodles, you're potentially exposing wet, sticky dough. It's been decades since I've cut noodles on a machine (I usually just do it for lasagne, my mom made fettucini and such). You may want to roll them out thinner (flouring as you go) so there's less surface to stick. Oil is bad as it can attract flour / dust / whatever and gunk up the machine.
Any moisture left on the rollers/cutters is an issue in my experience, and if left can result in pitting or corrosion either of which will be difficult to overcome. Qil I would think would not lead to corrosion, but might pit. While present, it will definitely increase the tendency to stick in my experience.
With the rollers, I would dust it heavily including giving it a couple of cranks, then run some fairly dry dough through repeatedly to grab any liquid or oil it can. Make sure to get all areas of the roller edge to edge. I have had luck with this, particularly when my roller was new and for some reason they put some type of dry lubricant on that marked my pasta grey/black if it ran to the edge of the roller. The same can be done if you do things like make flavored pasta or dough and think some residue may be left that will effect future projects for instance I make some cookies with a sour cream dough which are much easier to make with my pasta roller but I want to make sure no dairy is left on the rollers after so this is a cleanup run of some cheap four dough I will then discard.
The same should work with the cutters as long as they have not been pitted or corroded. For them, I would suggest using the same dough, towards the dry and still side, and thick enough to get all areas of the cutter that might be holding residue.
Hopefully you can get it back to good behavior with this type of dough cleaning. It happens to be the cleaning method that came recommended with my roller. When done, dust the maker and put it away that way, yes, looking "dirty" with a dusting of flour to protect it from moisture getting on it and pitting or corroding the working surfaces. Yes, some of that sounds contrary to normal kitchen cleaning practices, but it is what was recommended by my manufacturer and has worked well for me. It is clean, dry flour you are putting on which would not seem like a major safety violation, just a little unsightly.
PS, if you do not want to waste eggs, and I do not blame you, just mix up a dough with a bit of flour and water. I still hate wasting any food, but at least flour is one of the cheapest things we use, and you do not need much. Far less loss than needing to replace the entire pasta maker set.
You can do any1 method to overcome this problem
Scatter a little more flour over the pasta, form it into nests and let it dry for another 10 to 20 minutes, it should feel slightly dry but not brittle. Either cook the pasta immediately or cover the baking sheet tightly with clingfilm and store in the fridge for 2-3 hours
Mix until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If the dough is too dry, it will not form a ball. To moisten the dough, add 1 teaspoon of water. If it is too sticky, add 1 teaspoon of flour.
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96414 | Too much barley in vegetable soup
I added half a cup of barley to a vegetable (medley) soup and now the soup only tastes of barley. I made the stock from yesterday’s roast chicken. What can I add to counteract the floury taste?
In my personal experience barley is often like lentils and rice in that it can "take over" a recipe if not used judiciously. Too much barley and your soup turns into stew. That happened to me recently.
I've recently been reading "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" by Samin Nosrat and besides it being an excellent primer (or refresher course) on how to learn to cook intuitively she talks about what you can add to various dishes to counteract various ingredients.
As barley is a starch the best you can do is dilute it, or thin it out a bit. You may need to add a fair bit of broth and more of your vegetal ingredients. Possibly to the point of doubling your recipe. It will depend on when you find the taste and texture to have gotten back to acceptable levels.
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96474 | What can I cure at 15c and 50% humidity?
I have a basement that stays at a pretty regular 15c and 50% humidity. I dont want to set up a chamber for curing, Id rather just use the conditions I have.
The issue is I cant seem to find products that fit these environments. Is there anything? Whole muscle needs less humidity and more warmth whilst sausage needs more humidity.
Any ideas out there?
This is pretty close to the temperature and humidity of the closet where I store wine and hang salumi to cure. I've had the most success with pancetta, lomo, and brasola. I've had some successes and some failures with dried sausages and salami, usually related to undesirable mold that I didn't catch in time. I probably wouldn't hang an entire pork leg, in an effort to make something like a prosciutto. Generally, because of the cost and labor involved, I would want the conditions to be more precise and less variable. In my wine closet, the temp and humidity does change. However, for the smaller items I am playing with, and given the time necessary, the conditions are just fine. It sounds like a reasonable place to experiment. One final note, be sure your space is insect and rodent-free. That could be a potential issue.
Yes this seems to make sense, you think its best to go with whole muscle as its easier and needs less precision?
@Camboselecta, that has been my experience...I have done a whole pork belly, not rolled, as pancetta. That is probably the largest cut I have cured. Usually, though, I am doing smaller pieces...1/2 belly...or a 2 lb tenderloin (lomo) or eye of round (for bresola). The need for more precision would be if I had to hang something for many months, as I don't have temp and humidity control...but neither did folks 100 years ago, so I could certainly work.
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96604 | My cheese congealed and I don’t know why?
I mixed up a salad in a glass container I added dressing and goat cheese crumbles and shook it up. The next day when I went to eat it all the cheese ended up in a big congealed lump in the bottom of the container. Did I do something wrong?
Did you put it in a refrigerator ? If yes, the fat can congealed like if you put olive oil in the refrigerator it become solid.
I can't comment to ask a question yet, so I'll try to phrase it as an answer. IF you used a vinaigrette, it could be possible that the vinegar broke down the cheese and/or the oil congealed in the fridge, like someone else mentioned.
I imagine the cheese just "melted" in the presence of all the liquid in the vegetable and dressing.
You should try not prepare you salad a day before; or at least do not shake all the ingredients until you are ready to eat so that the more fragile ingredients do not wilter in the contact of the dressing, or don't add the dressing at that time, have a small container that you can use for the dressing.
If you are short on time, just have all the separate ingredients in different containers and assemble in the morning (or as close as possible to when you will eat it).
For example, have a look at this:
https://hurrythefoodup.com/how-to-pack-a-salad-in-a-jar/
Sorry, I don't see an explanation here. I don't think that the salad was heated, so the cheese probably didn't melt literally. And using it figuratively doesn't answer the question "why", it simply another description for what the OP already described.
Agree with @rumtscho : The primary question was about cause, not prevention. Adding some form of „try a his instead“ is nice, but doesn’t answer the question. There’s also no indication that the asker has problems with leafy greens, other ingredients may not only stand up to dressing, but actually benefit from a certain soaking time.
that's why I quoted the "melted" word; I know , from the OP, it was not heated; maybe; I still think the why because the cheese was in contact with the dressing.
maybe dissolve would be a better word ?
'Dissolve' would be wrong here, since when something dissolves, the result is a liquid, not lumps within a liquid. And the point is not just to find a correct word to name the process, but also to explain why it happened.
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109002 | Is it safe to eat sushi with different toppings (cooked and raw) after 24h?
I have been reading posts in the internet, but it just made me more confused. My conclysions after reading several posts of different websites:
Some say that sushi (the rice) with sashimi (raw fish) should be safe, but the cooked food shouldn't (this fact shocked me a little bit as I would expect the opposite).
Others say completely the opposite, as I was expecting. Even like 16h after storing it in the fridge, if it has sashimi (raw fish) it should be thrown (depending on the freshness of the fish. If you ordered it, its impossible to know).
Context:
I went at a friend's place yesterday at about 22:00. We chilled (using this verb in the cooking exchange just sounds weird, sorry) for a few hours and then I went home, not without taking the enormous sushi tray that was leftovers from a few hours before I went there.
Some info:
The sushi tray was on the table, not in the fridge. So my friends probably ate and then went to the living room without putting it inside the fridge. Let's say 5h passed.
When I got home, I immediately stored it inside the fridge.
Some sushi has raw fish (sashimi), some has cooked stuff (like japanese omelette) and I think there are some vegetarian or vegan ones.
Picture of the tray:
Whilst I'd never eat morning-after sushi at the best of times, right now I'd be considerably more concerned about being indoors with friends at someone else's house during the coronavirus pandemic. That's still illegal where I live, with no sign of it being lifted for at least a month.
@Tetsujin It is allowed in the country I am now, with a maximum of 10 people. We were 4, a couple, and 2 friends.
It doesn't! @moscafj I really wanted to know specifically for sushi, or raw food. Depending on the country and the kind of food, the time I guess it changes!
@M.K actually, it does apply. Food pathogens don't respect international borders. Your food was in the danger zone far too long. The duplicate question addresses that. I'm not criticizing your question, it's just that we already have a question that deals with this.
In a more generic way, then I guess it would definetly apply. In a generic way. @moscafj
If more people find it is the same, I'll be more than happy if it is marked as "this question already has an answer"! But probably sushi leftover edibility questions will pop up!
What matters is time in the Danger Zone. If your sashimi heated up to room temperature it should certainly not be consumed: for instance E. Coli doubles in between 15 minutes and 1 hour in warm conditions. (Sushi on the same tray is likely to get cross contamination.) Chilling it later does not help: the bacteria have already grown.
A very cautious recommendation is that any food that has spent more than 2 hours above 4C should not be consumed. This is particularly important for raw fish and meat that will be contaminated with bacteria.
I wanted to know specifically about sushi and raw fish (or cooked ingredients on top of sushi), which is why the other question does not apply. What you mention is really interesing (cross contamination). This is definetly a better answer than I expected. Thank you very much. I will definetly take into account your recommendation, specially with raw food.
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125032 | Alimunium foil or plastic wrap to send baked cookies via mail
I want to send some regular chocolate chip cookies via mail. It would take approx 3 days (2 min, 4 max I'd say) since sent, to get there. Temperatures can get hot now but it's not urgent so I can wait until the weather has a daily max of 26º C, which is nicer than 40. Dry weather sending, currently unknown if dry or humid weather receiver.
I have read about the same topic regarding cookies and cheese, and some external sites like Land o Lake, how to ship cookies and from better home and gardens as well.
I have the feeling I am not understanding how moisture works or affects cookies depending on the material used. I thought aluminium foil was used mainly for temperature "insulation", and plastic film wrap to keep moisture/not drying out. Depending on the site of the links above, some mention aluminium foil, others plastic wrap and also "either of them".
I would say that as long as cookies are not VERY dry, they´ll be fine texturewise. The oils inside the cookie and chocolate chips might also help. Before reading the articles, I would have wrapped them in plastic wrap, and wrapped that in aluminium foil.
Does wrapping cookies in aluminium foil only, differ on conservation than on plastic wrap only? Is using both or only 1 a good idea depending on the weather conditions?
(I did not add the preservation tag as it is not for long-term, would it be food safety?).
It’s probably been a decade since I’ve mailed cookies, and it was generally in December when the temperature were cooler, but I seem to recall that my issue was more about trying to keep them from bouncing around in the package so they came through in reasonable shape. I think that I put them on a paper plate, wrapped it in foil, added some extra padding (crushed paper? Recycled bubble wrap?) then put it into a box that it fit snugly inside.
One of my neighbors in college got cookies from home which were shipped in a box full of popcorn - that gave them stable packing that was also an additional, slightly cookie-infused treat. If you bagged the cookies I suppose the popcorn could be non-cookie-infused or flavored some other way. I recall them being shipped loose in the popcorn (said college neighbor shared...)
I would pack them in a tightly sealed tin, with parchment paper and perhaps a bag of silica inside, and the tin would go in a mailer box with some kind of loose pack like bubble wrap. The tins are pretty and useful, as nice as fresh cookies anyway. I am assuming the cookie is some kind of shortbread rather than some fluffy leavened doughy cookie.
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120847 | How can I know when are chickpeas done soaking?
I am trying to make tofu out of chickpeas with this Any Legume Tofu recipe (which seems like Burmese Chickpea Tofu), which states:
Ingredients:
200g dried legumes (chickpeas, beans, lentils)
Method:
Soak the legumes overnight or for at least 8 hours.
The next day, drain the legumes and pulse them in a food processor to break down slightly. Then add 500 ml of water and blend until smooth.
Filter the blended legumes through a sieve into a sauce pan and use the back of the spoon to squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Discard the pulp or use in baking (you can mix it into Sourdough Rye Bread dough). Add 1/2 tsp of salt to the liquid and whisk it in. You will notice that some of the protein has already sunk to the bottom of the pan. Make sure to loosen it with the whisk or it will burn.
Bring the liquid to a boil, whisking constantly. Keep simmering for 1 minute, whisking every now and then, until the mixture sticks to the whisk and doesn’t instantly level out when you stir it. Some legumes, like chickpeas, might need a little longer to reduce. So keep cooking if it feels too runny. Pour the mixture into a mould and let it set for an hour before using.
My procedure and problem:
I left the chickpeas to soak overnight. When I woke up (approximately 7h later), I realised they had soaked a lot of water and they were not covered anymore (my bad, should have put even more water). I would say they were covered 3/4 or 3/5. So I added more water. Now they will have soaked approximately 10h, but there is no way to know when did they stopped being fully water covered. I have seen several articles/websites (reddit, soaking them for too long?, how to soak and cook chickpeas, same v.2.0, , why won't my chickpeas soften, even in here Seasoned Advice and hard chickpeas even after soaking.
Most of them agree on an at least 12h soaking time (also depending on factors like altitude and water properties). Even the chickpeas bag states 12 hours of soaking (they are from the same place I am right now, so I guess altitude and water won't matter much?).
So I will stick to those 12h. But how can I know more or less a good timing, not knowing how much time there were left half-soaked while I was sleeping? And why would the recipe state AT LEAST 8 HOURS, if even the bag (and most recipes) says 12h? My guess is that, in other recipes I saw of burmese chickpea tofu, they use chickpea flour, so maybe it's not that important for this recipe specifically, to let them soak 12h, as long as it can be blended properly?
To end this, a picture of a soaked chickpea right now, another soaked chickpea which I split in half with a knife (I also could split them by hand by pressing a bit with 2 fingers), and 3 raw chickpeas (not soaked). I put 3 as I know chickpeas may vary in size, so the soaked (and grown in size) chickpeas may also vary in size.
Your recipe may be wrong, or the instructions on the packaging could be over-estimating the time it takes to re-hydrate to ensure people aren't disappointed. I would go with the higher number to be sure.
From my own experience I've found that dried beans and chickpeas soak up a lot of water in the first 2-3 hours, then the rate of absorption slows down, so I would work on the assumption that in the first 2-3 hours the top of your chickpeas became uncovered, which means you'd want to soak them for 9-10 hours longer if you are working to a 12 hour soaking time. They'll probably need less than that, but you don't want to under-soak or you may not get a good result.
I waited just to be on the safe side and proceeded with the recipe. After chilling it in the fridge for a few hours, I can say the final result is good! (Never tried Chickpea tofu before, it seems good to me). Thanks! Also, the recipe might be wrong, or I ended up soaking them for too long, as it took a long time for the mixture to reach a decent texture. It never reached to stick completely to the whisk (so more liquidy). The final texture after chilled looks more like a jelly kind of, not so mellow and consistent as in the pictures! But flavour wise, good!
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119902 | Can I use regular gas (stove) cookware (pots and pans) in a fireplace?
I went somewhere with a fireplace. Let's say the place and cookware are mine. The kitchen works with fire (gas stove), so the cookware works for gas (I've used it before for a long time).
According to my research, a gas stove can go up to +-1650C and a fireplace +-550C
I know that to cook in fire usually it's required to do it in the embers. E.G: some bricks to make a support, add a BBQ grill, and there you go (Done it. Messy because of oils dripping there, but works). But what about regular cookware which will be in touch with the embers (SUPPOSING that with regular cookware you do it that way) Imagine heating up a pot with popcorn kernels (it'd be hot enough), making some hot chocolate, etc.
My guess is that apart from getting the pots dirty and probably harming the handles if they are made out of anything different than the material the pot is made (usually hard plastic or w/e), it should work fine. Although in this site I usually ask and also experiment to try out and post the results , I really don't want to risk it this time. Temperatures are higher in a gas stove (although not constant, not everywhere in touch), so these variables make me doubt.
It's not impossible, but you should choose your pans with care. That 550°C figure is for the outside of a wood-burning stove, and would be faintly glowing red in a dark room. In practice the stove has to be burning pretty fiercely to get that hot. You could put pretty much any cooking pot on top and you'd be fine.
But you say "in a fireplace", not "on a wood-burner" so it will get a lot hotter than 550°C. It's done when camping, but it's also how many people cook all the time - the 3-stone fire (google images) is very common, though not very efficient. You usually need a sturdy pot support as resting it on burning wood isn't good for the pan or the food, especially when things move, hence the three stones. Cooking in the embers is possible, but that's normally done by letting them die down, and partially burying the pan for slow cooking.
Cast iron pans have been used for cooking since before gas stoves were invented, so they'd be fine. My cast iron is enamelled and I wouldn't because I want to keep it looking nice. Also the hottest burning bits of the actual fire are potentially a bit too hot for the enamel.
A pan full of hot water or milk is limited in how hot it can get, which will protect many pans. That means that thin aluminium camping pans can be used right down in the fire, but not if they boil dry. They don't last for ever if you make a habit of it, but they do work.
Given what I have available, I'd use a stainless steel pan with a stainless steel handle and lid. Obviously the handle has a high chance of getting hot enough to burn you.
And if you smear the outside of the pot with dish soap, the soot will stick to the soap, not the pan, making cleanup a lot easier
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97341 | Making preserved samosa
Is it possible to keep a samosa which is ready to be fried, frozen for a week or more and edible? If so, what is the process? Thanks.
It should be fine. These sorts of foods are commonly sold frozen in the USA and other countries and are easily reheatable in an oven or fryer. They should keep for some time sealed in a plastic container or bag when frozen
Freeze by placing in a single well-spaced layer on a tray, once frozen transfer to a more convenient container. To reheat/cook, heat fryer to correct temperature and fry for approx 5 min. An oven will take longer to cook.
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97347 | Quinoa flour rusks
My daughter struggles with food intolerance issues.
How do I substitute the flour in this recipe (link below) for :
- Quinoa flour
- Almond flour
- Combination of both?
http://thehungryherbivore.com/south-african-vegan-rusk-recipe/
Thank you ♡
Have you tried a one to one swap? If so, what happened?
According to one vegan South African cook, you can indeed make rusks with almond flour. I'd suggest using her recipe instead of substituting into the one you linked; it's really hard to get moisture balance right with gluten-free baking.
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97366 | Could I boil rose milk?
I forgot to boil the milk before I added rose milk essence in it. Could I boil now? I have been keeping the mix in the refrigerator for 5 hours now. I am not sure could I boil the milk now or not.
Is there any reason you need to boil the milk? Like food safety concerns?
Family members not allowing me to drink without boiling milk as that is harmful for health. I searched over the internet, everyone suggests to boil the milk.
@GeorgeM, I am from India. I buy milk from a milk supplier who has some cows in his home. I boiled the milk a little later, nothing wrong happened.
I assume you are talking about using raw (unpasteurized) milk; and want to make it safe for drinking.
I think you can boil it with the rose essence in it. It should not make a difference either way.
At worse it will taste cooked.
This link will show two ways to pasteurize the milk, either at low or high temperature.
https://www.livestrong.com/article/528722-should-i-boil-raw-milk/
I tried to boil the milk with essence. Nothing happened; milk was excellent and tasty. Time god, I didn't waste a litre of milk :)
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97615 | Forgot to add salt to french fries while soaking it in hot water
I tried to make french fries at home for the first time. As I searched over the internet, there are four steps,
Soak the potatoes in cold water for 20 mins
Soak the potatoes now in hot water for 10 mins with salt in it(I forgot to add salt in water)
Fry the potatoes in sim mode for 10 mins ( I did that already)
Fry the potatoes now in a high manner until they get brown (I need to do hereafter)
After the third step, I realised I had not added salt while soaking the potatoes. Is there any way could I add salt now before/while fry it?
I've made french fries a couple times successfully, and I've never salted them before frying.
@TomSmilack I think then the one I saw/trying should be an Indian style. Without salt, we do/eat nothing. :')
Also, without salt, it tastes like raw, boiled potatoes.
I'm saying salting before frying is unnecessary - you can toss the fries in salt and spices afterward, as in Stephie's answer.
Any salt added during the soaking step won’t make your fries significantly salty, during blancing the potatoes will precook and absorb some water and if salted, some salt (a 3% brine is suggested here). But the average French fry recipes I am familiar with typically don’t salt the water and many don’t parboil. - I never salted any soaking water and still got good results.
Fries are usually salted (or spiced, if you prefer) right after the last frying step when the remaining frying oil helps the salt stick to the fries.
In short: Yes, there are sources that insist on salted blanching water, and maybe it’s the way to perfection, but if you didn’t, simply salt afterwards.
Great. Thanks for the detailed explanation. I poured the salt on fries then had it with tomato sauce. It was much better than I thought.
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98721 | blending smoothies in a metal pot - will the vitamins go away?
I do not own a professional mixer where you can put all your fruits in and start to blend. I am using a hand blender. I put all the fruits and some yogurt in the metal pot and then blend it all. Someone told me that the fluid is reacting with the metal/alluminium surface which destroys all the Vitamins. If this is true is there something I can do about it? First I have thought to use a plastic bowl instead but then I thought the metallic blades of the mixer will still affect the Vitamins. Is there any alternative to prepare Smoothies where no metals are involved?
Professional blenders also typically have metal blades, so your immersion blender does not differ there.
I could not find (quick search) a reference to the fact that using a metal bowl "destroys" vitamins.
Aluminum bowls will react to some ingredients, mostly acidic ones (tomatoes, citrus..), but in a normal usage (blending fruits) , it should not be a problem.
Stainless steel bowls are NON reactive, and can be used with all ingredients, and usually sturdy enough to handle your hand blender.
You could use a glass bowl (tempered) or a plastic bowl.
Professional blenders (vitamix, blendtec, ... ) use either a glass bowl or a plastic bowl.
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97630 | Using a Convection oven. Do I use the same temperature as a Fan oven?
I am using a Convection oven. Do I set the temperature the same as a fan oven?
(Eg instructions only mention 190c Fan or 200c Electric for 25-30minutes)
Unable to find a basic temperature conversion chart. Just Electric/Fan!
In my experience the manual that came with the oven usually has information on this type of thing.
Yes I’d say this would be very oven specific. A further factor is inaccuracy of many oven thermostats. I would say it also depends on what you are doing. Baking is typically more sensitive than a stew say. For roasts use a probe !!, Document your results and learn your oven.
The temperature of the food raises faster in case of the oven with a fan, so you have to set a higher temperature in a conventional oven than a fan (Convection) oven.
It is not possible to have any conversion chart as between them, because how fast the temperature of food raises depends on the food itself. So, some experienced has to be gained while using conventional(without fan) oven keeping in mind the first point I mentioned- "In most of the cases, temperature you have to set this time will be higher than an oven with a fan".
I am sorry to downvote, and especially hate doing it with a new user's first answer, but it is simply incorrect to say that you have to set a higher temperature in a convection oven than in a fan oven, because the two are the same kind of oven. So you always use the same temperature. And even if you misunderstood the terms and thought that the convection oven is without a fan, there are conversion charts which work very well in practice.
Maybe a confusion of convection with conventional?
Ya, sorry... it is 'conventional' not 'convection'!
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98680 | Once mixed, how long is cake batter good when refrigerated?
After using a cake mix to bake in a lamb shaped form, I have batter left over. How long can I keep it refrigerated (not frozen) and still combine it with another cake mix batter -- and have the second cake bake properly?
Possible duplicate of Storing cake batter
Welcome to the site @TheOwl, your question has already been asked, please see the link above.
@GdD I don't think this is quite a duplicate. That question asks about storing and using just the batter that was stored. This question indicates that OP wants to mix saved batter in with fresh batter, which I think might behave differently (or at least the situation is different enough to warrant a more tailored answer).
The second box of mix would give fresh leavening (baking powder or whatever), so it might be okay ... but I suspect it'd be a little bit more dense than usual. But I still wouldn't try to keep it for more than day or two in the fridge. Eggs and milk, and exposed to the elements by stirring.
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98854 | Oven caught fire while using self-clean
Oven caught fire while using self-clean. Now the oven looks bad (greyish tinge) - how do I clean it? (I'm only renting!!)
Grease fires do happen with self cleaning ovens, it's why I stopped using that feature: I didn't feel like I could leave it to get on with the cycle safely and I couldn't sit there for hours.
Cleaning it afterwards isn't a big deal, the grey dust is ash and you can vacuum a lot of it out once the oven is clean. If any ash remains good old soapy water will get off the rest.
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99085 | Precook or raw when chilling meat?
I currently have an unopened package of raw sausages in the fridge (with several days left before expiration).
I also have a recipe to use all of the sausages, but due to the other ingredients in the recipe (mostly pasta) I know I can't cook it all at once (due to pot size, mostly). So I will have to make half of it at a time.
Is it better to pre-cook all the sausages and put half back in the fridge for a couple days until the second batch, or leave them raw? And should I leave them in the original (now opened) packaging (if raw; I know I shouldn't do that if cooked) or transfer them to another container (which can be sealed)?
You may want to check: Does the container of the sausages specify that the best-before or use-by date applies to the unopened package? Does it indicate that it was packed with a special gas mixture, that would escape once you open the package? Do you have access to a freezer?
I don't think it's anything fancy; it's just bog-standard supermarket plastic wrap.
Either way should be ok for a couple of days.
Either keep them raw and cook them in a couple of days, or cook them now and re-heat them in a couple of days.
Agreed ... either will work. Cooking first might be more convenient later (faster to throw something together on short notice), but there's typically better quality if you freeze it raw and cook as needed.
Ok. Out of curiosity, does the answer change if it were "use by" today or tomorrow instead? (Where the second batch won't be cooked before then.)
@Miral : the closer you are to the date, the better it would be to cook it in advance. (as the time is cumulative, and you might decide to defrost in the fridge for a day or two)
Precook all of them now. Make them good; maybe parboil first then slice them and fry them or grill them to get that brown sausage goodness.
Freeze half because you won't want sausage again right away.
Warm up non frozen ones in the pasta water before you drain the pasta.
Next time you make pasta in a few weeks thaw your sliced frozen cooked sausage
in the pasta water before you drain the pasta.
Everyone is happy!
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99096 | Is it safe to eat veggies that were chopped on bloody cutting board and then cooked?
I made steak last night, and my girlfriend just chopped up some broccoli on the cutting board I used to prepare the meat, without washing it. She plans to cook the broccoli in the oven, which she said will cook off any bacteria that would have been transferred from the cutting board, but I'm really worried about cross contamination since it was 80 something degrees today and that cutting board had a fair amount of dried blood on it...
Should I eat the veggies tonight? I always err on the side of caution and think I'd rather mildly offend her by not eating that part of the meal than risk getting sick.
I always err on the side of caution... Well then, i guess you should start the habit of cleaning your utensils right after using them.
https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/34670/how-do-i-know-if-food-left-at-room-temperature-is-still-safe-to-eat
Can you eat steaks or black pudding?
@Alchimista how is that relevant to the question?
@Luciano. It seems very relevant. Can you eat a steak that was bloody? I did not want to mention tartare and carpaccio that are even row (though freezing required, for cutting carpaccio at least).
Sorry @Alchimista but OP asks about safety of eating vegetables that touched blood on a board, so I fail to see the relevance of wether he can eat meat or not. How does that change the safety of it?
@Luciano the broccoli were oven cooked
Tangential, but unless you butchered a cow, your cutting board wasn't bloody. https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/10/25/myoglobin-red-meat.aspx
Your girlfriend is right (lucky you). As long as food is going to be cooked thoroughly after coming into contact with the blood on the cutting board there is no risk as the heat of the oven will kill off any microbes that can cause foodborne illness.
The concern would be cross contamination of food that will not be cooked, for instance salads, breads, etc. This is why good professional kitchens are strict about washing boards after being used - in a busy kitchen it would be easy for mistakes to be made. In a home kitchen when there's good communication or just one person cooking you have much less chance of that happening. However, it would be all too easy to forget and crunch down on a piece of raw broccoli or for a small child to get exposed by raiding the uncooked vegetables, which is why it's good practice to wash boards after cutting meat even in a home kitchen.
"Good professional kitchens" have specific cutting boards (often color coded) that are ONLY used for meat...or for produce.
It's important to stress "thoroughly", as you should cook the meat-contaminated item to the safe temperature for the meat.
Worth correcting "blood" to myoglobin here. Veg is cross-contaminated with raw meats, but in a way that is very unlikely to result in pathogen growth. Likely safe.
Well, I think it’s absolutely fine to eat that broccoli today, cuz there probably wasn’t any pathogenic bacteria formed over short period of time between you used the board and then she did. If this chopping board was washed well beforehand (and your kitchen is not a total mess :) it should be fine.
Plus she cooked in an oven which probably was heated up over 220°C, which is enough to even do a sort of autoclaving (sterilization) of broccoli and for sure kill any germs.
So, you probably should go and enjoy your dinner)
24hrs is approximately 6 times longer than the prescribed 4hr window that pathogens are given before they can be dangerous.
Without getting too technical, you did the right thing by not eating it. There are many factors that dictate wether a harmful pathogen got enough time, temperature, and moisture to grow on that cutting board to get to the veggies and make you sick. I'm trained on food safety, and for example in a restaurant that's a BiG no-no, and you are suppose to wash and sanitize the cutting board, tools and surface, when switching tasks, and specially between any raw peotein and vegetables. However, my family back home would totally do something like tgat, and probably not get sick, it all depends of how strong your gut is. I wouldn't feed those veggies to anyone myself
this is conflating several safety standards and rationales. Cross contamination and Time & Temperature are separate concerns
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99237 | Can't Get That Grilled Cheese Done Right
I've been trying to make grilled cheese on the grill for a while now. While at first this sounds funny, but I believe that it is 100% possible to do. I just have no idea even how to approach this meal. Also, please keep in mind that this is my first post here so apologies if this has been asked before or seems like a joke.
Welcome to the site. I think your question can be improved by updating the question with what you've tried till now and what exactly is wrong. Based on that we might be able to give you tips how and where to improve.
When you say on the grill, do you mean a barbecue as in the US sense of the word or a top grill as it is known in other places, aka a broiler in the US? What is the method you use?
Ah.... literally grilled cheese. Here I was thinking you were incompetent with bread and a skillet. Interesting question. +1
this sounds great. I would eat one right this minute. I would eat the experimental ones too.
Check out Welsh rarebit, it's not quite what you are after as it is more toast with melted cheese on top prepared on a grill/broiler, but it might point you in the right direction.
Prepare your sandwich [buttered/dry - cheese - dry/buttered] and wrap in aluminum foil. Place on the grill (or directly on the coals), turning to toast on both sides of the bread. Timing is going to be a trial and error lesson. My thought is 2-4 minutes per side, but this will be largely dependant on the heat of the coals.
As noted by GdD, "grill" means one thing in American English and another in British English. This answer uses the translations provided in this StackExchange post, and focuses on the American English definition.
Grilled (American English) a.k.a. Barbecued (British English)
This section uses the American English definition of "grill" unless otherwise noted.
There seem to be two approaches to attempting cook a grilled cheese sandwich on a grill/barbecue.
Foil-Wrapped for Entire Process
One approach wraps the sandwich in foil before cooking. elbrant's answer describes the general procedure.
Direct Contact with Grill
Another approach, with a detail example described by the Fix.com blog does not wrap the sandwich at any step. Direct contact with the grill is used throughout. A selection of steps is included below; the link also includes instructions on how to create three zones with different heat characteristics when using gas or charcoal grills.
4) While the grill heats up, grate the cheese. About 1 cup of shredded cheese should be perfect for one sandwich. Brush the bread with melted butter or olive oil.
5) Place the bread in the medium zone of your grill for approximately 2 to 3 minutes or until the bread is lightly toasted.
6) Evenly distribute the shredded cheese on top of one slice of bread. Position the second slice of bread on top of the cheese. Place the sandwich on the grill over the medium to high heat section for approximately 2 to 3 minutes or until the cheese starts to bubble inside the sandwich.
7) With a metal spatula, move the sandwich to the low heat zone for an additional 3 minutes.
Bonus: Alton Brown's Hybrid Approach
Alton Brown describes a somewhat labor-intensive procedure that involves both stages where ingredients are cooked directly on the grill and stages where the whole sandwich is wrapped in foil:
Prepare a charcoal grill by starting a two-zone fire (charcoal piled under half of the grill, with no charcoal along the bottom of the other half) and wait until the charcoal is "hot and ashy"
Melt cheese in an appropriate container over indirect heat on the grill (The recipe suggests creating containers by using grill spatulas and aluminium foil). This may take 6-9 minutes
Cover both sides of two slices of bread with fat (butter or oil) before grilling them over direct heat, 1-2 minutes per side.
Assemble sandwich; prepare enough foil to wrap the sandwich, place a piece of bread on the foil, scrape the cheese out of the container onto the bread, top with the other piece of bread, then tightly wrap the sandwich
Grill the foil-wrapped sandwich over indirect heat for another 1-2 minutes
Grilled (British English) a.k.a Broiled (American English)
This section uses the British English definition of "grill" unless otherwise noted.
bob1 pointed out the Welsh rarebit in a comment. Two pieces stacked together may form an acceptable sandwich, especially if both sides of each piece of bread are grilled to the desired consistency before applying cheese and grilling again.
If you are curious why a sandwich cooked on a griddle is known as a "grilled" cheese sandwich in the United States, you may want to look into the history of the cheese dream, an American open-faced sandwich grilled in the British English sense ("broiled" in American English).
I always butter both sides of each peice of bread and try not to use grated cheese, as it falls out. Make sure the pan is hot, non stick, and don't grease it, the butter on the outside of the bread will do well enough.
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99283 | Poolish deflated after refrigeration
After I allowed the polish to rise for approx. 10 hours ( it had risen quite a bit) and I placed in the fridge overnight - I find that the level has dropped from the high it had prior to refrigerating ? Why ?
Yeast fermentation slows down under refrigeration but does not stop altogether. After 10 hours, the poolish probably exhausted all of its food for the yeast. Putting it in the fridge did not accomplish much of anything afterwards. It needed to be fed again.
Thank you for the comment, but if I may ask you if I’m doing this correctly : 250g flour, 250g water and 5g fresh yeast - this combination allows the Poolish to rise to maximum (before it recedes) only after 9 hours at room temp (20°C) - I can’t seem to be able to do what a lot of others do by having the Poolish rise for 10-12 hours at room temp and then placed in fridge overnight without the whole thing collapsing ( and they only use 0.1% yeast) Can you advise me ?
Hi Rob, again, when you say I need to feed it.... does it mean that I can proceed with the Poolish at room temp for, let’s say 9 hours and then before placing it in fridge overnight, I feed it , say 50g flour and 50g water ?
@Audie After the poolish rises, that is the time to add additional flour and water for the rest of your recipe. A poolish is used for flavor for the final dough.
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99293 | How to pack chilli Powder
I packed chilli powder to transparency polythene bag. It expires very quickly. But when I put chilli powder into plastic bottlle I can remain it for long time. How can slove this?
Thanks
It's not clear what you're asking? What are you trying to solve?
In a word, you can't.
The issue is with the bag vs. the bottle. Both are made out of (essentially) the same thing. But the bottle is thicker and 'breathes' less than the bag. In a word it is less porous.
Plastic bags are not good long term storage, especially ones you buy at the grocery store. What you need to do for maximum shelf life is (at least) a plastic bottle.
Me, I make chili powder every 6 - 8 months and store it in a glass container in my pantry. It stays reasonably fresh the whole time.
So the hierarchy of storage goes something like this.
Paper bags, plastic bags, plastic containers, metal/glass containers
With the left most items being more porous than the one to it's right.
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99312 | Does jellyfish contian heme or non-heme iron
Is the iron in jellyfish heme or non-heme iron? I would like to eat jellyfish as an alternative to red meat and know that I am getting a good source of iron in my diet.
Hello Autumn and welcome! Don't have time to write a proper answer right now but, as jellyfish don't have blood, any iron from them wouldn't be heme iron.
@Cindy thanks for the response. Damn. Oh well, it still seems like a good meat to eat instead of beef.
We don't have a "wierdest question of the month" award, but if we did, you would win. Maybe eat that squid with some spinach. It's nonheme, but it has a lot of iron. Welcome to SA!
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99372 | i want to know about this strange black thinng which is present inside this banana
what is this strange black thing inside of this banana is it safe to eat or not if anyone knows about this please let me.i'm worried.
Did you find it running through the middle of your banana?
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99574 | Are residues from seasoning coating harmful when using carbon steel pan?
I seasoned this carbon steel pan a few months ago, but after several times I cooked, the seasoning coating started to flake. I wonder are the residues harmful? Can I remain the way it is or should I scrub off all of them and re-season again? Thank you so much!
Welcome to SA! Can you take a look at the answer to this question: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/54642/how-to-maintain-a-smooth-seasoning-on-carbon-steel-skillets?rq=1 ... and see if it addresses your problem?
Possible duplicate of How to maintain a smooth seasoning on carbon steel skillets?
What oil are you using for seasoning the pan?
Does this answer your question? Wok patina comes off
Just a note that if you use flax seed oil to season, it is notorious for flaking later. Also you may be seasoning with too much fat/oil when you heat it to create the polymerized surface.
The way to season carbon steel, woks, and cast iron is to wipe oil in the pan then wipe it out so that you can barely see a sheen of remaining oil. THEN heat it to the smoke point and let it fully dry and repeat, repeat, repeat! Again, when you first put in the oil/fat, you MUST wipe it out. That will allow for the polymerization to work as intended and not leave a surplus, sticky, or exessive quantity that doesn't complete polymerization with the pan in full.
Bon appetit!
Perhaps the jury is still out on whether the black bits are harmful or not, but they will break off into whatever you cook now so....
The best way might be to start over again - to clean the pan
Simmer one quart of water in the pan on your stove. When the water is simmering, add 1 tbsp cream of tartar, 1 tbsp lemon juice and 1 tbsp white vinegar. Simmer for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the mixture to cool.
Then carry out the seasoning process again as per the following;
Complete initial washing with soap and water to remove any residue from the above process. thanks
Preheat the wok over high heat. ...
Perform a water test by throwing a drop of water on the pan. ...
Add in about 2 tablespoons of oil and reduce heat to medium-high.
Add aromatics like chopped onions, ginger, and garlic to the pan. ...
Reduce heat to medium.
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100990 | Baked Potatoes Cooked Over a Fire
This weekend, my wife and went camping. I tried to impress her with a surprise meal (much more than the usual smokies or hotdogs roasted on a stick). I went for steak, potatoes, mushrooms, salad and a corn on the cob. Everything turned out great --- except for the potatoes.
ISSUE
Potatoes were only cooked after 4 hours in the coals.
TECHNIQUE
Got the fire food and hot (at least 350F, used an infrared thermometer to check). I put the potatoes (Yellow, baking potatoes if it matters) in the hot coals. I have made them like this before, and it typically took 2 hours. And I rotated them periodically (so as to not let the foil burn from prolonged contact). As I mentioned above, I've made potatoes like this before...but never had them take so long to cook.
By the way the rest of the food turned out just fine (actually better than fine, it was the best back country camping meal I had ever made). We ended up using the potatoes for hashbrowns the next morning because we didn't want to wait for them to finish before making/eating the rest of the dishes.
QUESTION
Given the above technique, why did my potatoes not cook like they should.
I'd be tempted to use russet. Were they bigger than usual? I've seen people bury the potatoes in coals, that would make it cook evenly and faster.
No they were about the same sized as I use normally, and I go with yellow for the size factor (when backcountry camping) having your eyes trick your belly helps a lot with "feeling full" as well as being full.
Were the potatoes maybe a bit older? I always find that potatoes which aren't as fresh tend to need longer cooking to those straight out the ground
@Bee not that I could see I bought them literally the morning we left, wrapped them in foil at home and walked out the door with them packed in the pocket that I have essentially dedicated to carrying potatoes.
Hmm, just ad idea! I like that you have a potato pocket though.
Two likely possibilities:
The potatoes had too much foil surface exposed and not enough in contact with hot coals, and as a result were just not getting hot enough. Maybe it was a colder night (were you hiking at altitude?) maybe the coals had a lot of insulating ash, maybe the coals were already too cool (350F is not particularly hot for coals). This is why burying the potatoes in the coals is more common.
The potatoes you bought were defectively dense. Apparently potatoes can have a growing problem where the core of the potato is extra-dense due to weather changes, and that core takes forever to cook through.
Yes, I know 350 isn't too hot. I tossed them on at that point and let them go from there. I use the thermometer as a means of getting a baseline (a handy tool from a past job, why not use it right?). It wasn't particularly cold (lows of around 10C, which isn't unusual for our trips) and the altitude was roughly what we normally do. As a result I am more inclined to lean towards Possibility #2.
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102359 | Chicken didn't retain flavour from marinade
Last night I made some lovely chicken. However the flavour from the marinade was lacking and spotty. Some parts of the chicken (drumsticks) were quite flavourful, while in others the flavour was more in the background almost like an after thought.
Now, a quick note - I normally cook using dry rubs as opposed to marinades, but like most of my other questions I am trying to broaden my horizons and add tools to my "culinary tool kit".
Below is my procedure and then my question.
Procedure
Rinsed chicken
Made marinade (500ml mango juice, 6 fresno peppers with seeds, salt and pepper, 3 green onions, a dash of soy sauce)
Placed chicken in container and poured the marinade over the chicken so that it was all submerged and shook briefly to make sure it was well mixed
Placed in the fridge for (what was supposed to be 4 hours, but ended up being 24 -- long story)
Place on BBQ, lightly salted, and cooked at a temperature (approx. 375F - it varied occasionally to turn but was generally around 375F for 90% of the time on the grill).
Question
Despite sitting in the marinade for so long the flavour didn't "uptake" well, and did so unevenly across the meat. My questions below - I feel all have the same underlying cause.
How can I better ensure that the flavour seeps into the meat more uniformly?
How do I prevent "spotty" flavouring in the future?
Would poking the chicken, just to break the skin, have helped?
That's a raher controversial subject. You may enjoy reading https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/39436/how-deeply-will-the-flavors-in-a-brine-penetrate-chicken, one of the nicer examples we have for self-answered questions on the site.
How is this controversial? And I read that link before posting my question (and since your post skimmed it again) - and while it is a good read and related it is neither a duplicate nor contains the answer to my questions.
It is controversial in the sense that there are many people out there who swear that marinade can and does penetrate chicken to the core, and there are many people who swear that it is a pure surface treatment and any taste you get is due to your mouth mixing up the surface with the insides. I suspect that every answer we get will be informed by the poster belonging to one camp or the other.
That is what I thought you meant. That's why I tried to avoid that "controversy" by narrowing down my question by breaking it into more digestible chunks (hence the bulleted, broken down question). This was done in an attempt to get people to contribute objectively.
This kind of precise question writing is always welcome, with or without controversy in the background. I'll be interested to see how it works out with the expected effect on the answers.
I did enjoy reading the answer to that potential duplicate question, and I think that the scientific fundamentals behind that answer potentially answer this question, but it might be not clear for someone without the proper academic background to correlate it
@JulianaKarasawaSouza which I suspect is my problem - while I have a solid academic background it is not in natural sciences but instead in Economics and International Trade.
@JCrosby It's quite simple. Consider marination as a sort of cross-border arbitrage...
The scientific foundation for this answer is in the fantastic post pointed out in the comments here.
How can I better ensure that the flavour seeps into the meat more
uniformly?
Basically there are two parts to this problem, as pointed out by the other post - one part is the composition of your flavor components that you want to penetrate the meat, and as discussed at length in the original post, more lipossoluble molecules and smaller molecules penetrate the meat better; the other one is the surface area to volume ratio of your chicken, for the molecules that will have more difficulty in reaching the deep confines of the chicken, so in that case, the smaller pieces of chicken you use, the better.
This is essentially the scientific foundation for why wings and legs are more flavorful than breast, especially when it is a whole chicken.
How do I prevent "spotty" flavouring in the future?
Either change the composition of your marinade (this one is very water soluble and has a lot of big flavor molecules) or cut your chicken in smaller pieces (so the surface area to volume ratio is better).
If you want to change the composition of your marinade to include more oil-soluble substances, I advise you to use buttermilk as a liquid, since it has a larger oil-to-water ratio and it will be a better solvent for your additional spices and ingredients. For a suggestion on the ingredients, the chili family in general contains capsaicin which is liposoluble and gives the spicy kick; black pepper, anise, cloves and nutmeg all contain eugenol, which is a small molecule and also has a good solubility in fat and gives the aromatic aspect; you can also use roasted sesame oil for the smokey depth and an Asian-like feel.
Would poking the chicken, just to break the skin, have helped?
If it is just breaking the skin, not really. What really helps is injecting, so you get more surface for your brine to permeate the chicken.
See this! This I understand much better than the science-heavy answer you refer to. +1 for speaking in lay-terms.
@JCrosby in hindsight, I also need to include some suggestions on ingredients you can use to change your marinade composition, I'll add it to the answer
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99870 | Why are chicken thighs sold as bone-in skin-on or boneless skinless but never boneless skin-on?
Chicken thighs are fantastic pan fried skin down for that crispy texture. The bones tend to get in the way of eating them however, and they are a hassle to remove (though quick with good knife/shear technique). I'd love to be able to buy boneless skin-on thighs as they seem like the ultimate easy/juicy/flavourful cut of chicken.
Is there just such a small demand for boneless skin-on thighs that they don't bother producing them, or is there a butchery processing reason (e.g. does industrial-scale deboning damage the skin)?
Actually while they are not easily found everywhere, some stores do sell the boneless skin-on chicken thighs and breasts. In fact, I just bought some of the thighs this past week. (I'm in the US, mid-atlantic region.)
The reason most stores don't sell them that way is because it's a less popular option and therefore in less demand than bone-in,skin-on or boneless/skinless. That said, if you shop in stores that have butchers on premise, you can ask them to bone the thighs and leave the skin on.
Back many years ago before boneless/skinless pieces became popular, it was quite easy to find the boneless thighs and breasts with the skin on.
I'd never thought of asking a butcher to bone them for me. Thank you for that detail!
I'm in London - most supermarkets sell them here as a regular product line.
Also London and I've not seen them very commonly. I just buy them with the bones in and de-bone myself. Tends to be cheaper too!
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103478 | Chicken thighs in pressure cooker
Me and my wife are starting a business from our home kitchen. Our main dish is roasted chicken thighs with potatoes, and luckly the orders has been growing every week. The problem is, the thighs took more than 1 hour to cook in the oven, this is our main bottleneck.
Is it OK to cook it in a preassure cooker and just finish in the oven with the potatoes?
What do you mean by "OK?" Can you cook them that way? Sure. Is it still "roasted chicken thighs?" I would suggest it is not.
How long does the potatoes take to cook compared with the chicken ?
I am considering a close vote as "unclear". What do you mean by "is it OK"? Note that we can't take subjective questions, in the sense of a poll asking who is for "I would do it" and who says "I wouldn't", you have to tell us what criteria you have for "OK" vs. "not OK".
If each order takes 1 hour to cook then it's a problem. But why not pre-cook the chicken in the oven before hand then reheat under the broiler before serving?
I don't understand what you are trying to achieve, the end result of flavor and texture you are looking for. Also, chicken thighs should not take an hour to cook unless you are roasting them at a really low temperature. If you can describe your method in more detail, with temperatures, and the result you want then you'll get answers.
If by “OK” you mean whether there are food safety issues the answer is no, pressure cookers are safe places to cook chicken.
If by “OK” you mean “will it have the exact same texture and flavor and so forth,” the answer is that pressure cooking is more intimately related to boiling and stewing, and is a fast method of doing those sorts of high-moisture approaches. In the presence of heat and water, a central structural protein in skin and muscle called collagen becomes gelatin; this is why a pot roast left for long enough becomes “fork-tender”, it falls apart without need for a knife. In your pressure cooker, that effect is happening to your meat and chicken skin, and it is irreversible. It is not necessarily a bad effect, maybe you prefer the texture that way—but the texture will very likely be more floppy than your roasted chicken recipe used to be.
There may be some other options; for example one of the reasons you should never cook a steak in the microwave is that it causes these waters to evaporate and these muscle proteins to contract without that slow conversion to gelatin which makes a pot roast bearable. But ironically this may better suit the texture that you are going for; you may get something resembling the right consistency you had by pressure-cooking or parboiling your chicken in stock, par-microwaving it for a little longer, and then finishing it in the oven—maybe. It is also possible that this completely wrecks the delicate balances that made your product what it was; for example oven fries that are parboiled before roasted can have a more chewy texture than the oven-fries you get without parboiling, it's not necessarily a bad effect but it is different. On the extreme other side you could also just sous vide the chicken maybe and then broil it with the potatoes—this takes significantly longer but you haven’t told us why you think an hour is too long to cook the chicken, and it is possible that it frees up some critical resources (such as manpower or the oven) by moving them elsewhere. It may also be possible to simply tightly wrap the pans of chicken in foil to trap the moisture which would have otherwise evaporated from them, and maybe then they cook a little faster in that gentle steam.
All of this is worth a test run; your taste is the best judge. Science is nothing if not the repeated doing of crazy experiments until you figure out something better that works consistently.
Also keep in mind that these slick approaches could maybe halve your cooking time and hence double your throughput, but you can double your throughput in a different way by simply having a second oven. Where I grew up in upstate New York, several firehouses had very long fire pits which they used to mass-produce a local variety of barbecued chicken to raise extra funds, so these sorts of approaches can be scaled way way up, with some imagination.
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105913 | Roast almond for desserts
I want to bake a cake that mimics the Sahne Nuss chocolate bar from Nestle. So my plan is a chocolate cake filled with a chocolate ganache with pieces of almond in it.
My question is: should I roast the almonds before adding into the ganache? I'm looking for a crunchy texture for the almonds.
Yes, roast the almonds. Be careful not to burn them. You can roast them in a dry skillet, tossing them frequently until aromatic and slightly darkened, or in the oven for maybe 25 minutes at 200°F (95°C).
This is a good answer. Flaked almonds are readily available and could also be used. The roasting time would be reduced to at most 5 minutes.
I assume you mean Fahrenheit, but could you clarify that in your answer to avoid the risk of unwary Celsius users singeing their bits?
I am surprised by the edit. My experience and online recipes, e.g. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/roastedalmonds_70353, https://www.wikihow.com/Roast-Raw-Almonds all suggest that 200°C is about right. I think 95°C is far too low: this won't even toast bread!
Roasting for a shorter time at a higher temperature is possible, but it leads to the formation of acrylamide. Here is an article which explains this for more info. https://www.almonds.com/sites/default/files/content/attachments/aq0104_acrylamide_in_roasted_almonds.pdf
Thanks, that is interesting. I'm still surprised 95°C is hot enough to roast the almonds, rather than just warm them through. Still, the linked article does say that acrylamide forms at 120°C.
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103198 | Moose Drool Beer Bread in a Bottle OVER 10 YRS. OLD
I bought Moose Drool Beer Bread in a bottle which contains flour and yeast while vacationing up north in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan over 10 yrs. ago. I never uncapped it and was just wondering if this could still possibly be good.
There is no expiration date on the bottle. I checked on line but could not find any info on this product.
What is the alcohol content? Also, how has it been stored?
it's not a beer, it's a bread kit ( you add real beer) and bake it.
Please [edit] your question to add the details: what is this moose drool beer bread, how was it stored, etc
I never uncapped it and was just wondering if this could still possibly be good.
Probably not... dry yeast is made up of living yeast cells that are in a dormant state, and they become active again when they'r rehydrated. Over time, they degrade and once enough of them have died you won't have enough yeast to ferment the dough. Also, flour doesn't last forever -- the shelf life of white flour is usually a year or two. So, even if the kit works in the sense that you can get the dough to rise, the bread probably wouldn't be really good.
I wouldn't waste time on a 10-year old bread kit: toss it and find a recipe for bread in a similar style that you can make with fresh ingredients.
Update:
It occurs to me that this is a beer bread recipe, and many of those are quick breads that use chemical leaveners (e.g. baking powder or self-rising flour) instead of yeast. That doesn't really change the answer, though... the flour is still going to be way past it's stopped-being-delicious-by date, and like yeast, chemical leavening agents also lose their effectiveness over time.
Caleb, while I agree with your answer (+1), I think I would have to invest a bottle of beer and a little time to see how it turns out. If it's good, yay! If not, not much lost.
If the flour was sealed in a bottle that should prevent oxygen from the air oxidizing the flour. So the flour wouldn't age as badly as flour in a kitchen canister, but the old flour probably wouldn't be at its peak either.
Yeast, in dormant state, can last for an seemingly indefinite period of time, as long as not subject to things that eventually degrade the viability - heat, light, etc.
I drink beer. I've had off flavors when I brew, I still drink the beer. I'm still breathing. My guess is I'd eat the moose drool. May I suggest using Moosehead beer to complete the task? If you don't want it, I'll take it, don't toss it though, at least try.
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103302 | Apple Crumble doesn't turn out okay and takes forever
I used a simple Apple Crumble recipe: equal parts by weight flour and butter, and half part sugar. It takes forever to bake in my electric oven at 180C. I made a very small batch today (25g butter and on) in 4" round pan (non stick pan which can be base separated, though I used butter paper). It took more than an hour and a half for the top to begin to brown (and the edges began to blacken), and when I took it out the apples in the base were either burnt or completely dried. Last time I made a bigger batch and it also took forever to cook, and then it burnt from the top when I increased the temperature to 200C to speed things up (I don't remember exactly but I think the apples were fine then) and I had used a steel pan.
So my question is, what is contributing to my apple crumble disasters? Are pans no good and I should be using ramekins or glass dishes? Is slicing the apples not the best way to do it? Am I supposed to use butter paper or not? And what is the best temperature to bake it on? Why is it taking forever, especially in a smaller pan? Thank you!!
I use a 5/2.5/1 flour/fat/sugar ratio and bake at 200C(or180C fan)/390F for around 30 minutes. You say yours are taking a long time to cook, but ending up burnt... what is your criteria for ‘done’?
It took more than an hour and a half for the top to begin to brown
I take away that this is what you are looking for as a sign of done-ness, but when you get it the rest of the thing is overcooked.
You can get the top to brown faster either by adding some extra sugar to the top (sprinkle it on) or toasting it under the broiler for a minute or two once the rest has baked.
It is also possible your oven is miscalibrated. Maybe it is cooler than you think. Bake an oven thermometer and see if it agrees with the temperature you think your oven is set at.
It could also be that the top element (broil/grill) in the oven isn't working - this is usually on in most ovens when baking, but if it was off wouldn't allow proper browning of the crumble.
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103369 | Sun dried tomatoes
I purchased sun dried tomatoes, all natural/no oil, in a bulk food store that is not in my area a year ago. They are packaged in ziplock bags with no Best Before date. One package is still unopened, stored in my pantry. There is no sign of spoilage or mould. Are they safe to eat? Should they be boiled?
If they are not moldy, nor have any other signs of spoilage, they should be fine to eat. In fact, if they are not moldy after a year, I'd guess that they dried hard; foods which are almost completely dehydrated will last almost indefinitely as long as they don't get wet or insects.
That's not to say that they'll taste good; dried foods do lose flavor over time, and you may find those tomatoes have lost most of their tomato flavor; check before you depend on them for a recipe.
You don't need boiled water to rehydrate them, warm/hot tap water will work.
> You don't need boiled water to rehydrate them, warm/hot tap water will work. keeping in mind the usual advice about cooking with hot tap water, depending on the plumbing in your home.
I agree with @FuzzyChef that they are probably safe to eat, I would point out that if they were bad boiling them would not be a way to make them safe from all foodborne pathogens.
As for whether to rehydrate them or not it depends on the recipe and how you want to eat them. Some recipes expect them to be dried when used and have extra moisture to compensate. You also may want to keep them mostly dry, it's the concentrated tomato punch that makes them tasty.
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103403 | Difference between bake and roast
First question-
If the receipe says to bake without mentioning to preheat, readymade base for instance, should I preheat the oven?
Second question-
Is the receipe asks to roast, bell pepper for instance, does it means to preheat and bake? Or shall I just use at microwave mode??? Pls help
See also What is the difference between roasting, baking, and broasting?
Baking in the oven. Roast with fire
Any recipe which calls for you to bake, roast, or otherwise cook at a particular temperature, is expecting you to preheat the cooker to the specified temperature before adding the food, unless it specifically says otherwise.
"Roast" or "bake" never mean "microwave". If a recipe wants you to use the microwave, it'll say that. (There are, of course, things you can choose to do in a microwave or in some other cooker, like melting butter; that's up to you.)
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103522 | Milk expiration date
The date on my milk says 11/12/19, and its passed. I was going to dump it so I smell it and it smelled normal?? Is it still ok to use? Because I have another gallon in the fridge (they come in pair)
Most places, milk is labeled with a sell by date, not a use by date. In most places in the US, it is expected that the milk will be good 7-10 days beyond that date under proper storage. That varies a little by jurisdiction, in my state it is a minimum of 7 days. Actual time you will want to continue using will depend on your tolerance as it starts to sour, storage temperature, time out of cold storage, smells and flavors it may pick up in the fridge, etc. For me, I usually cannot tolerate the taste beyond about 5 days even though it is not spoiled in most people's view. My partner seldom has issues with it well beyond 7 days so I let her use it.
The great things about milk
If you can smell things, and the milk smells good, it is good.
Even if the milk smells sour, it is still probably safe.
Milk that might make you sick smells terrible. No-one who could smell would drink it.
I would absolutely drink (store bought) milk that smelled good. This rule does not apply to unpasteurized milk; as I understand it milk with bovine tuberculosis still is tasty, but infectious.
"Milk that might make you sick smells terrible. No-one who could smell would drink it." That is categorically false. One of the most common bacterial contaminations in milk that makes people sick is Listeria, which has no noticeable odor. Other types of microorganisms can also grow in milk but produce no noticeable odor. Most of these are rarely found in pasteurized milk, but contamination can happen, and part of the reason for expiration dates on milk is because even at refrigerator temperatures, these organisms can multiply over time to make someone sick.
Note that I'm not saying the chances of getting sick from OP's milk are high (they probably are quite low), but smell is NOT a reliable indicator of food safety for any food.
As said in @Willk's answer, if the milk smells normal you can use it as you would use normal milk. If it is soured you have yourself some soured milk.
You can still use that, but i wouldn't suggest pouring it into coffee or over cereal. However, you can use it in baking or anywhere you would use butter milk. The tanginess gives a great flavor to stuff like pancakes for example.
I know it is an important ingredient in some traditional German dishes as my grandma used it quite a lot, but i think it's even more used in eastern European cuisines.
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103675 | When cooking 2 Honey Baked Ham frozen sides, how do I need to change temp or time?
I have two frozen sides from the Honey Baked Ham store that I want to cook simultaneously - they are the Au Gratin Potatoes and the Sweet Potato Souffle. The first should cook at 375 Degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes, covered, then 13-15 minutes uncovered and sit for 2-3 minutes after removed. The second, should cook at 375 Degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes, covered, then 27-30 minutes uncovered and sit for 2-3 minutes. If I want them to be done at the same time and put the Sweet Potatoes in first (since they need to cook longer) the temp will obviously drop when I add the frozen Au Gratin Potatoes.... any help would be greatly appreciated!
The second item needs to be in the oven for 15 minutes more than the first item. Just put that item in the oven, then put the second item in 15 minutes later. Follow all other procedures as indicated in the instructions. The required cooking temperature is the same for both. I am assuming that cooking from frozen is built into the instructions, so that will not really matter for your question. The temperature will drop a bit when you open the oven door, but your oven will catch up in a reasonable amount of time and will not impact the final cooking. Just make sure there is a bit of space between your products when they are both in the oven.
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103937 | how to brine olives - how cool is cool area to brine them?
My olives have been brining for 2 months, and are still quite bitter. I read to keep them in a cool place, here in Arizona when I started this process it was still in the 90's so I put them in the fridge. Is this too cold for the brining to work? How cool should it be? There is no basement here and the floor temp is about 68º. Will this be cool enough?
There are five treatments to process olives: Water cured, brine cured, dry salt cured, lye cured, and lye cured fermented. The main objective when curing olives is to leach out the oleuropein, which is the bitter compound found in fresh olives, and to ferment them, which improves the flavor and, of course, improves the shelf life.
It sounds like you are using the brine cure method. Oleuropein is water soluble. Chemically, the salt brine breaks the bonds between the oleuropein and sugars, allowing it to leach out.
So, first, you should replace the brine after the first week of curing, so that the leached our oleuropein is removed. Then, from what I gather by reading this, 2 months is the minimum curing time.
Curing time is impacted by temperature, salt concentration, and acidity. These factors can slow or speed the time. It looks like their recipes for brine cured olives proceed in a temperature range of 60 - 90 F (15.5 - 32.2C). Further, they recommend a 2 to 3 month cure (2 if you like more bitter olives).
So, I would suggest that your cure is happening very slowly because of the refrigerator temperature. It seems to me that your room temperature is ideal. I would just remove them from the fridge and check in a couple of weeks.
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104220 | I have raw goat's milk yogurt in my refrigerator. I made it 2 months ago. Can it still be used to bake with?
Can yogurt made with raw goat's milk be used to bake with after 2 months?
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104265 | Milk pan for induction hob
Traditionally, copper pans are used for heating milk because of copper's conductive properties. Does this still apply for induction hobs (obviously would need some steel in with the copper pan). What sort of pan is best to use to heat milk on an induction hob?
It doesn't matter. Any pan that works on an induction hob will work for heating milk on it. And especially with the speed of induction, you will not notice much difference with different pans.
By the way, there is no reason to want an especially conductive pan for heating milk. Milk burns easily on the bottom when heated too quickly, so being more heat conductive is more likely to be a liability. I have personally not seen copper pans being suggested especially for milk, the traditional milk-specific pans I've seen are either thin enamelled steel or special stainless water-bath gizmos with a whistle.
The reason to use a copper-bottomed pan is to conduct heat from a small hot-spot to the entire base (and sometimes edges) of the pan. This is especially important if using a gas stove, as (especially when using a small flame) it heats a comparatively small spot.
For induction stoves the problem is not as big as it heats most of the base of the pan. Still, when using a thin-bottomed pan on a small ring, you can see that it's hotter right above the ring than elsewhere.
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85966 | Can pork and beef be thawed in water together?
I just went downstairs and noticed my girlfriend thawing pork chops and beef together in a bowl of cold water, is this okay?
The water is bloody red and im worried that the porkchop juices mixing with beef juices is a bad thing
Appreciate any insight
This can be safe; mixing isn't fundamentally dangerous. The things to keep in mind are:
The overall thawing method needs to be safe. Ideally that means running water, but the key is that it's fast enough to avoid spending too long in the danger zone. A bowl of water is likely too slow, though it can be fast enough if the water is agitated and changed periodically to simulate running water. See also What are the acceptable methods to thaw food items?
They'll need to be cooked to the higher required temperature of the two. For example, if the beef were ground, it needs to go to 160F, so even though pork chops only need 145F, you'd probably want to cook them to 160F anyway.
The mixing doesn't really change anything, any more than adding raw beef and pork to the same pan does. You just end up with a combination of the unsafe things from both, and then you cook them both to render them safe. Safety is essentially just about cooking to a high enough temperature, and not staying in the danger zone (40-140F) too long.
I don't think this is a particularly good thawing method, though. Ideally anything you've frozen is in an airtight, watertight package of some sort, so you could just keep both packaged during thawing. Or if you plan ahead, you can thaw in the fridge.
Hey thanks for the info! Im pretty sure theyve just been floating in the same water for 6 hours, but I gotta give her points for trying. I might still cook them both anyway though
@SYAWEDIS That's pretty definitely unsafe, in that there is some risk, hard to say exactly how much. Most likely the surface of the meat was in the danger zone for most of that 6 hours, and the usual limit is 2-4 hours -- and cooking doesn't "fix" it.
Fwiw the water is still pretty icey cold
If "pretty icey" is below 40F, I think that means it's okay, but hard to say if "icey cold" by your standards might include 40-50F.
Hard to tell without a thermo, but the beef is now cooking in a stew. Will let you know if we die
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120588 | Basic Instapot Operation - setting the cooking time under Manual/Pressure Cook button
Plug in the instapot - display shows OFF. Then press Pressure Cook (Manual) button, the timer shows a minute or so. Press "+" button and timer increments by seconds, up to 4 minutes then resets to zero and counts up again. Cant't set to my desired cook time - say 10 min. What am i missing?
timer increments by seconds, up to 4 minutes then resets to zero
The most probable case is that you are misreading the label. It probably shows minutes, increments up to 4 hours, then resets to zero.
My Instant Pot is an older IP-Duo model, and its display is in minutes only, so above 60, it just goes 61, 62, etc., not 1:01, 1:02. But it still resets after 240.
Different Instant Pot models have different programs, but I doubt that anybody made a program counting down in seconds, since that precision is not needed in pressure cooking. When combined with the info that they are already restricting my model at 4 hours (which makes sense too, for recipes longer than that, you probably don't want the pressure cooking mode anyway), I would say you are just assuming the wrong unit.
Correct - Instant Pots operate in hours:minutes, not minutes:seconds (which is the standard for microwaves, that may explain the confusion).
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90722 | What method can be used to peel an Avocado without damaging it?
This is a problem I really have each time I want to peel them. Over the years I used forks, spoons and knifes but always the Avocado gets damaged as it is mushy, pulpy when I peel it and gets a mess. Is there any method than can I use to properly peel it or perhaps a tool developed for this purpose?. If there is a video or picture that can accompany the answer that would help me a lot.
Related: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1911/how-can-i-remove-the-peel-and-pit-of-an-avocado-without-the-whole-thing-turning?rq=1
@Stephie I didn't included information about ripe but I usually cut them when they're okay to be eaten. Cutting in half is acceptable but cutting it in blocks not.
In my experience, the most important part of peeling an avocado without damaging it is to first select an avocado that is perfectly ripe. A perfectly ripe avocado will yield to gentle pressure in the palm of your hand. Once you've selected appropriately, halve it lengthwise and whack the pit with a heavy, sharp knife and lift it out. Then use your fingers to gently remove the peel. If the peel does not separate cleanly, try it again with a less ripe avocado.
If his intent is to peel it WHOLE, then ripeness will be the problem rather than the solution...
@rackandboneman I usually try to peel them by cutting them in half and removing the seed with a spoon but this method always gives me some troubles.
@rackandboneman no where in his question does he say he wants to peel it WHOLE. I have never seen an avocado served whole, with the pit still inside, so peeling it that way doesn't even make any sense.
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90971 | What method can be used to remove the seed from a peach other than just trying to pull both sides after cutting it?
I tried to find an answer to this question in this community but I couldn't find one. Therefore I'm asking it. So far the method I'm using is cutting the top and the bottom with a knife and then carefully cutting a hole in the middle from the bottom to the top. But the result isn't nice. Well, I often get some troubles trying to not cut the seed of the peach. Does it exist a tool or something that I can use other than a knife?. I tried to look for videos, but none have shown improvement over what I'm already doing.
There is this video and this other but they seem to use a technique of unscrewing the fruit and I tried to do the same but I couldn't as it felt as both sides were well sealed. Therefore Is there any trick on this?. I appreciate your suggestions.
The "unscrewing" method only works with very ripe fruit,
What are you doing with the peach afterwards? Are you going to cut it in slices or pieces or are you trying to keep it as whole as possible?
@Stephie I use them for desserts and the result can be cut in pieces but also in decoration, thought sometimes keeping it whole is desirable.
If you have the right kind1 of peaches (freestone, ripe), cutting around the stone along the side seam and further on will be enough to let you separate the two halves and lift out the stone. In all other cases, this is where the fun begins.
When working with peaches and nectarines, I always start with that initial once-around cut and try turning the halves.
If that fails, I cut a “wedge” parallel to the first cut and lift out that first slice.
Repeat. Just imagine cutting like meridians on a globe and you get the idea.
As the slices are connected at only a slim strip to the stone, they will either come off with just some pressure from the knife or can be cut off with the tip of your paring knife.
The first one is usually the most difficult one, here I often cut with a slight “slant” to minimize the area on the stone.
This method minimizes the amount of flesh stuck to the stone and gives you neat slices that look good if served like that or can be easily cut into uniform pieces.
The harder or clingier the fruit, the narrower should your slices be to still get them off the stone easily and without breakage.
If you are planning to mash/puree/cook the fruit anyway, you can of course just hack away...
————-
1 Peaches, like plums, are classified as freestone or clingstone (sometimes a third type, semi-freestone is mentioned), depending on whether the stone separates easily from the flesh or not. Most, but not all cultivars in stores are freestone peaches, but clingstones are sometimes described as more flavourful: They are often sweeter, less juicy, so have a more “concentrated” flavour.
Note that even for freestone peaches, the stone will separate best with ripe fruit. Underripe fruit will also cling.
I'll be looking forward to pictures as a reference, althought I get the idea when you mentioned meridians. I'd like peaches not too rippen, maybe some in the middle. The ones I find in the groceries store seem rip already but I don't know how hard or soft the fruit has to be to be in the state you mentioned. If my thumb feels no strong resistance on pressure is the method I use, about exterior color of the fruit I am not good in telling the difference until well maybe is too late. A tool advertised on Amazon has been mentioned by another user and I'm intrigued.
I'll end up trying it as well, however in the picture it doesn't seem the edges are sharpened. In the video seemed the person had to give some force to her hand for twisting and removing the pit though.
@ChrisSteinbeckBell if you're willing to spend on a specialized tool for this, you could look for something marginally more multitask, something like a grapefruit spoon. The sharpened edge should ease the work of cutting, and the curved edge should fit nicely around the pit when cutting.
I agree with @GdD's answer in that the peaches need to be ripe for best flavor and easier pit removal. But let's not forget that there are two types of peaches - clingstone and freestone.
Splitting the peach is the preferred method for either. However, as the name implies, it is much easier to remove the pits from freestone peaches.
I personally prefer clingstone peaches as I find them to be more flavorful. That said, pit removal is difficult at best. Cling peaches are hardy enough that, even when ripe, they stand up to the pulling or twisting them apart. Overly ripe and they, like others, will turn to mush.
Additionally, clingstones tend to be slightly smaller than freestones. Depending on the use, that can mean more peaches to pit. Bonus with cling peaches is that they are typically ripe and available a little earlier in the season.
Also wanted to mention that peaches, like other fruits, should be rinsed under running water and dried before any cuts are made. And never peel the fruit before pitting. The skin helps to maintain the integrity of the fruit while handling.
+++ After looking around for a while, I found that there is a tool used for pitting stone fruit. It is a Stainless Steel Pitting Spoon. Here is a link to it on Amazon. And here is a link to a short video on YouTube showing how to use it.
Looks like it takes as much effort as pitting a cling peach, but the advantage is that the fruit remains whole.
@Stephie Yep. The only time I could see myself using it would be if I wanted to keep the fruit whole. No reason at present but, now that I know it exists, my mind will probably wander there. >.<
For freestones, a paring knife plus a narrow teaspoon would probably serve the same purpose? (I think I just got a few dessert ideas...)
@Stephie I was thinking along the same lines. Other ideas involve a paring knife for the initial cuts and either a curved grapefruit knife or a grapefruit spoon. I told you about the mind wandering! :)
@Cindy Thanks for that find. I'll give it a try, as Stephie mentioned, it looks that a spoon can be used to obtain the results, but I think maybe the edges would need to be a little sharp, as the technique shown seemed to be tricky. I like the way it preserves the whole fruit.
@ChrisSteinbeckBell You're correct that the edges of the spoon would need to be sharp. That's one of the features of the pitting spoon. Definitely more important with a cling peach than with a freestone.
Other than cutting a hole from top to bottom there's no other way to get the pit out of a peach without splitting it in half. You can't pop it out using some sort of oversize cherry pitter - if it's under-ripe the flesh will be too firm and if it's ripe it will be too soft and you'll just squash it.
The key to happy peach cooking is to get ones that are ripe. If they're ripe they'll fall off the pit easily using the halving and unscrewing method, and they'll be delicious. They'll also be very tender so you'll want to treat them gently. Georgia peaches in the height of the season are the size of a softball and you need a shower after eating them they're so juicy! Unfortunately most peaches I find in the store on both sides of the pond are not even close to ripe, most of the time they are hard enough to hammer a wire nail into plaster. When they're like that just don't buy them as they will have no flavor and they won't soften up much. Even cooking won't improve them much, and getting them off the pit without ripping them to pieces is a challenge.
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88947 | What alternatives do exists for properly squeezing lemons?
This happened to me often when I go to some restaurants or be on a visit to somebody place. It just happen that I want to add some lemon to my soup or use it as an addition to my meals but they do not have access to a lemon crusher. Is that the name of the tool?.
I've seen people used forks, spoons and just their thumb for squeezing the juice of the lemon. But is there a method which has proven to work the best to take out all of the juice without trying to make much force with the hands or something?. Is there a tool that can be carried on maybe portable for this purposes?.
If I serve lemon to be squeezed over a dish. I segment it the other way..(from pole to pole, not around the equator). Then cut the core off, leaving one or more squared-off segments in the piece. I can then pick out remaining pips with a fork.
If cut in this direction, it's easy to squeeze out all the juice in the segments by hand, no tools required.
Yes!! One problem, though: you really need to get rid of the seeds before squeezing, or you could end up with a depth charge in your opaque sauce :)
@rackandboneman True.. I hold the wedge up to the light to check. But, I admit, it's not very 'refined'.
@RobinBetts Actually I felt that my problem is that using bare hands is something which I would like to avoid.
A lemon wedge squeezer may be what you want.
They are
and the lemon wedge .
(Pictures from Amazon.com)
I was not aware that such device existed. Have you ever used it? Does it ensure that all the juice is extracted from the lemon?
I have used some that are well-made and work well enough on quarter wedges; others I have seen seem to be too flimsy to squeeze wet tissue. You get what you pay for. Personally, I normally squeeze with my fingers.
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94278 | What beginner friendly tools can be used to sharpen a dull knife to a razor edge and polished result with no prior knowledge?
Okay. I really tried to avoid going too broad in this question and before of all I did some research on my own in this community and here's what I found.
This post addresses which things should come in mind when selecting a knife sharpener. Well the answerer did some good hints into that but it didn't specifically pointed out some examples based on his/her previous experience and what would recommend based on brands or whatsoever, needless to say if a wet stone would be a way to go. Yet this does seem to help a little on what I'm trying to look for.
This other post addresses another important aspect I found about sharpening a knife, which is the angle that you have to grind? so that the desired result is the one which will do the right cut, but in that specific question the OP did have some issues with converting a ratio to an angle. Yet this is not my intended question, needless to say that the answer did not helped me much as well as probably the knife sharpener that I'm looking for would come up with some preselected angle or another way to select it to obtain a sharp edge.
This third question speaks about frequency which is kind of fine as a suggestion but it doesn't count as the kind of answer which I'm looking for. It also mentions about using an angle, and recommending that after once every couple of weeks and check for heavy use, again the answers featured does not address my question.
This fourth question is way off from what I'm looking to ask but it counts as a curiosity that I had which mentions that oil should not be used in waterstones. Yet I'm almost certain that this is not the method which a beginner like me should use for a small sized knife, needless to say that to sharpen a knife with a stone looks very time consuming and prone to errors if not taking care of the angle and rubbing method that you might use.
This fifth question it also doesn't count as it points out how to sharpen a different tool (a peeler) and I'm aiming to sharpen a knife.
The sixth question Seems a bit close to what I'm asking since it mentions if a knife can be sharpened using sandpaper, there are instructions and recommendations of which kind of sandpaper to use as one of the answerers does explain, but this method doesn't seem to what I look for since I dont have much experience using those and as I'm a beginner I don't want to ruin my knife, needless to say I wouldn't know how to select the right angle.
The seventh question addresses another curiosity, kind of obvious on how to know if a knife is sharp. Usually I begin to notice it when trying to cut soft veggies as mentioned. Not much to add really as again it doesn't solve my problem.
The eight question seems to come in handy as it adds to my question. Although there are some brands suggested by some of the answerers, the answer which does have more upvotes seem to discourage the OP from attempting to sharpen those kind of knifes at home. Seriously it is not the kind of answer that someone wants to read when looking for some DIY suggestion, but again my question addresses just a straight blade not a serrated one, so I can pass this for time being.
The ninth question I've found does cover sharpening with a stone which again I'm not getting used to and I don't have the necessary experience to do it right and obtain a desired pristine polished edge in the blade.
So far those are the questions with some insights individually I found in this community.
But to make clear my question is that I'm looking for a product or a recommendation on something which you guys have used that it works properly without much difficulty or craftsmanship and a bit of fool proof. Doing additional research in youtube, what I found is this guy who uses a stone sharpener and while he's very verbally outspoken it really isn't the method that will be for me, needless to say that it looked hugely time consuming and not for a beginner (as it was intended to imply in the title). My concern with his method is that the sharpening angle is not precise and it is more like guess-estimating which is not what I'm looking for.
The second method that I've found uses a weird tool which has some holes in it and the poster doesn't really explains much where did he obtained the so-called base other than just saying he bought it online. The video in which he does explains the method is much better than the first but again it doesn't seem one which would work for me as I don't seem to find what tool did he used and I don't have proper experience to do this by my own since in the end he seems to polish the resulting border left by the sharpening procedure on both sides of the blade. I must note that the video shows a serrated end and not exactly a polished one which I'm aiming to.
I know there are other methods such as using a wheel (which I also don't have and not really in the mood of spending that much in time and resources to use it) and of course the electric sharpeners.
With all that being said did you guys have had any good experience with a manual tool that a beginner can use to obtain a near "brand new" sharpened edge on the blade?. It would help me a lot if the responses include some links to amazon so I can review what buyers think on the suggested product and if did met their expectations or perhaps a video. A picture would be the best visual aid that can help me with that.
My fear is that I don't want to buy something which in the end will ruin my dull knife (which happens to be a kind of small as shown in the second video referred above). If possible what I'm looking for is something that can be manual but has good results as explained above or an electric one which isn't that pricey.
I'd be looking forward to read your responses and experience with different methods which beginners can actually try and have success in a polished and razor edge in the blade as described in my question.
You do realize that what you are asking for is practically impossible. A beginner cannot do the work of a master. Experience is key.
The tools you're looking for are:
Money and a phonebook.
Call a professional, and pay him to do the work.
It's safe to say that after finding 9 posts covering how to sharpen knives, which all state more or less the same "..yes you can do it yourself, it's not too difficult, but it does require practice...", there is no magic tool. Yes you can do it yourself. It will take practice. You will get better. But, as with all things, it comes at a price: Time.
I sharpen my knives with Japanese water stones (other people may have other preferred sharpening methods.) I don't do that out of sheer enjoyment. I'm sharpening them with Waterstones because there is no magical gadget that gets it done at a fraction of the time and effort, and meets my requirements.
I had to learn it, it took time, not even a ridiculous amount of time, and sometimes I still screw up. And if I screwed up, and I screwed up badly, I use my next favorite tool:
Money and a phonebook.
If you don't want to spend a fortune on something that has to be plugged in or the time necessary to learn how to freehand on sharpening stones (a rewarding journey btw), then in order to get razor sharp results, you'll need some kind of jig to hold your blade at the correct angle to your sharpening surface. I would recommend one of the Lansky systems. They're reasonably priced, accessible to a beginner, and can achieve very good results with curved knife edges.
I'd recommend a few beginner-friendly tools that I personally use to achieve a razor-sharp edge with a polished finish
Knife Sharpening Rod
Lubricating Oil or Water
Whetstone
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100088 | No bake s’morse peanut butter bars
I made this s’more peanut butter bars and I did not have Ritz crackers to make the crust that said I could use graham cracker crumbs which turned out to be three cups. I would like to know what I could use to make it pack down again because it came horribly crumbling. A
Thank Youbig mess
Yvonne, welcome! Could you please add the recipe? It can help understand our users to judge what may have gone wrong and how to fix it. You can always [edit] your post with more details and as for all new users, I recommend you take the [tour] and browse through our [help] to learn more about how the site works.
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100196 | Cherries + 2% salt + 1 week at room temperature =?
Around a week ago I had a tray of leftover cherries. I rinsed them, cut them in half and took the stone out, mixed them with 2% by volume Kosher salt and vacuum sealed them.
I then left them on a counter in my kitchen for a week at room temperature (North Wales, for reference), "burping" the mixture on day 3, 5, 6,7 & 8.
I've opened the mixture today - the cherries were sour as expected, however I'm not sure if that is from the liquid that's come out of them, which smells pretty strongly of alcohol.
What have I made here? I was working off from the Noma fermentation guide and guess I sort of expected lacto-fermented cherries?
Googling would suggest I have made something in between this cherry chutney:
https://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/recipe/lacto-fermentation-recipes/lacto-fermented-cherry-chutney/
or umeboshi:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umeboshi
Any help gladly appreciated!
What makes you think they are not lacto-fermented cherries? The Noma guide is, of course, a reliable resource. I assume you followed the procedure for plums (or the general instructions for lacto-fermented fruits and vegetables), as the book does not have a specific recipe for cherries. It could be that you just allowed them to go too far for your liking. The book does talk about "watching the timing", and choosing a stopping point that suits your taste. The specific fruit, and of course the ambient conditions, will influence the fermentation.
The two links you attached are also for lacto-ferments. The chutney just has other ingredients added...so call them what you wish. I would say you have lacto-fermented cherries.
Thanks for your answer, apologies for the delay in accepting it. Think it was a case of first time nerves and you are right - if it looks like fermented cherries, tastes like fermented cherries and smells like fermented cherries, well it probably is fermented cherries!
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119219 | Boeuf a la ficelle - cooked in bouillon?
I'm looking to make boeuf a la ficelle as part of Christmas dinner this year, but am struggling to find a consensus on the execution.
In the Les Halles Cookbook the recipe says to add the beef to water (alongside vegetables and bouquet garni). Other recipes online appear to add a bouillon cube to the water, or make up bouillon and add the vegetables and beef directly.
Is there any consensus on the right/best method? Anthony Bourdain says on pretty much every other recipe in the book to use a good homemade stock, so if it is bouillon the beef and vegetables need to go into it seems a pretty glaring omission...
I also have some guests that prefer well done beef to rare - recipes online say that the cooking liquid can be ladled over rarer slices to cook through - how effective is this?
Finally - is it worth blasting the exterior of the beef after it has been in the cooking liquid and before resting to establish a darker crust?
Hm. Vegetables plus a bouquet garni reads like a quick stock to me? Have you considered that?
it all depends, what you understand by Boeuf a la ficelle, which covers a quite wide range of different cuts and recipes, starting from oxtail cooked in boillon to the rolled rib roast cooked in the oven, where you use the bouillon to pour on the meet periodically to make it more tender
I suppose it does become a quick stock. From the answer below, I'm going to throw in a bouillon cube just to give it a boost. I'm using a 1kg beef tenderloin, alongside some root vegetables.
"Is there any consensus on the right/best method"
As long as you start with good ingredients, using either bouillon or stock will both impart good flavour to the meat.
"cooking liquid can be ladled over rarer slices to cook through - how
effective is this?"
This technique is used for Vietnamese Pho, so as long as the broth is boiling hot and the meat is cut thin enough then YES it does work. If you think that the way you are making the beef is by boiling in liquid, this is simply an extension of that.
"is it worth blasting the exterior of the beef after it has been in
the cooking liquid and before resting to establish a darker crust?"
Since the meat is boiled it does not have a "dark crust" at all, so YES basting with hot fat/oil will make it darker than it would have been.
If you mean "blasting" as in with a blowtorch, it may get some colour, but a quick brush with oil would be helpful for that too.
There’s a difference between “blasting” (applying high heat, e.g. with a kitchen torch) and “basting” (pouring cooking liquid or fat over the food). You may want to consider that in your answer.
i thought it was a spelling mistake. thanks for the heads up.
Excellent, thanks for your help - I did mean blasting as in to apply high heat to the exterior - sear in a hot pan or with a torch.
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100382 | Health department food safety
How do you temp a raw carrot for a salad bar setup per the health department and what should it temp at?
Where are you writing from? And in what setting?
Washington state an in patient treatment center
I would call your local food safety department.
https://www.doh.wa.gov/CommunityandEnvironment/Food/LocalFoodSafetyContacts
The comment of local food safety is spot on, they are the authority on legality for you and that is one of the criteria you must meet for your own protection and that of your clients/guests. As you ask specifically about health department requirements, they are the authority, so go straight to the source to satisfy them and that is more of a legal question, so outside of what we can really answer.
Bacterial growth danger zone is 40-140F, so in general the advice is usually to stay out of that zone. Now, on you specific item, raw carrots are not going to be a high illness risk I would think. However, going much into that range is also going to put you into a zone that the quality, not just the safety of the product will deteriorate more quickly if you are in that range. Personal observation is that carrot will hold up fairly well up into the 50's, but why? If you are in a salad bar setup, you likely have other items that may deteriorate more quickly so to handle them you want temps at least close to that 40F number or lower such as using an ice bath if the items will remain for an extended time. And if you have items such as those made with mayonnaise, boiled eggs or other cooked items, any meats, those must be outside that high growth zone so above 140F for hot items and below 40F or so for cold. If you need to chill or keep warm some items, you might as well do all.
One very important distinction to make here! The danger zone is temperature over time, not just simply temperature. Depending on whether you have a HACCP/HARPC plan written out, the temp-over-time paramters might change, but as a general rule of thumb most of the food industry following something along the lines of: 40°F-80°F for no more than 8 hours, and 80°F-140°F for no more than 2 hours for their CCP's.
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100407 | Making Cream cheese and Mascarpone cheese at home
I’ve been trying to make Mascarpone cheese and Cream cheese and I’ve tried various recipes but all have failed. I think the problem is with my starting ingredients.
All my cream cheese/mascarpone end up too stiff and rubbery along with some grains. Its not velvety/creamy like store brought versions.
For cream cheese i’m using whole milk/lemon juice and straining it. For mascarpone i’m using 25% cream.
The recipes I am referring call for 35% cream, but I don’t have those here where I live. Will adding butter and a bit of Xanthan gum to emulsify it (have that already) increase it to 35?
I have tried playing around with the acid contents (lemon juice, citric acid and varying them up and down by 20%)
Whats always missing is the velvety texture for both the items. Any clues would be greatly appreciated.
Also I have tried warming them to soften them up a bit before using but to no avail.
Note - recipes I’ve tried for making the mascarpone and cream cheese.
https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/mascarpone-cheese-recipe/
https://food52.com/blog/12319-homemade-mascarpone-cheese
https://fankhauserblog.wordpress.com/2003/05/29/making-mascarpone-at-home/
https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/how-to-make-cream-cheese/
For your biggerbolderbaking cream cheese recipe, you aren't making cream cheese, you're making paneer - whole milk that's curdled by lemon juice that makes a grainy cheese, which is often strains quite firm, and it doesn't melt or stretch well.
That blog is making something else, a soft cheese substitute that's just very soft unstrained and blended paneer. I suppose that can match texture if carefully curdled (I must imagine), and thoroughly blended with some water and whey to mechanically break up the curds, but it isn't cream cheese any more than scrambled tofu is scrambled eggs.
Cream cheese is made with cream (stretched with milk, often, but it does need the extra fat and the more cream, the better the flavor), and it's fermented much like yogurt is... you can often buy the cultures in the same place, and the procedure is much the same, and even sub them for the other in a pinch, though the flavors will be just a bit off. I've made it before, it's pretty fun and tasty.
In truth, most cheese is cultured - cheeses curdled with just lemon juice are rarer and mostly of the grainy firm curds variety like paneer. Cheeses often requires specific strains (the basics being mesophilic or thermophillic cultures for cheeses, and yogurt culture being the other major option), and often further curdled with rennet. You can find these ingredients online most anywhere.
If you're really interested in making a cream cheese substitute, with what's easily available, I'd suggest making yogurt cheese or greek yogurt - heat and cool the milk, culture with a spoonful of yogurt, then strain very well so the result is thick and creamy. You can find recipes all over the place with amounts, precise instructions, etc - and you can culture yogurt with storebought yogurt (with live cultures), so you don't need to be buying and shipping culture from all over the place. It would be creamy, thick, and fresh-tasting, if somewhat leaner that a true cream cheese... a decent substitute if you just want something approximate.
I am much less familiar with marscapone cheese, it looks like it's closer to thickened cream than curdled cheese. It looks some of the major factors are the fat content, the proportion of acid, and the handling.
Heavier cream apparently won't curdle like milk, since the proportion of fats to proteins is way off, so I'd guess the percentage would make a really big difference in this recipe. This may be aggravated by the acid content.
The other thing is, the proportion of acid needs to be quite low - one of your recipes calls for 2 1/2 tbs lemon for two and a half cups cream, the other for just 1 tbs per two cups, that's a really big difference. I'd guess lower fat content plus extra acid would make the cheese much grainier.
The third factor from what I can tell, is handling. One recipe mentions the cheese becoming grainy when using active, rather than passive straining, another mentions graininess when the cream is mixed too hard or too much. I'd guess it should be very gently or occasionally mixed once the lemon juice is introduced. It may help to add less acid but let it have more time to thicken so the process goes more gently.
You might be able to get a softer texture my mechanically breaking up the curds, mixing or blending, though there's no guarentee.
ps - you can't really "enrich" milk or cream with butter for higher fat content when it comes to recipes requiring cream, etc, they just doesn't combine on their own and emulsifiers are likely to mess with the curdling process. You can often make do with a lower fat content, it will just taste a bit differently, a bit less rich, but it's often tasty in its own right. You might, if you really want to try it, fold very soft butter into the cream cheese right when it's ready to store/serve/etc for a richer flavor... but I've no idea how it'd turn out and there may be other unexpected changes.
In a food processor or blender you can easily get rid of the grainy texture of your cheese, if you dont have those try with a strainer of small mesh of course several times. try to get that 35 % fat cream, the more cream the more smoothness and stiffness i think...
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100533 | Chicken: How to prevent spices/seasoning from burning on Pan?
Newbie cook here, I use stainless steel but it seems to be a paradox on this.
I am using bone-in chicken thighs and a dry lemon-pepper rub that I put on the chicken. Pat it dry/let it cool down etc etc
I know you need to get the pan pretty hot to where water will form a ball on it, then add oil (I use vegetable) then wait for slight whisps of smoke. Then add chicken.
My stove seems to get my pan very hot in even medium heat so maybe that's an issue but I start on medium. Put chicken on skin down, get a pretty good "crackle" from the oil on it.
Here is where problems arise. People talk about leaving chicken/salmon in this position for like 3-5 minutes and I find that if I do that. All of my seasoning will be black and burnt.
How do I balance getting the steel hot enough to prevent sticking/get a good crust, but not burn the spices?
Should I start at medium (which seems more like medium-high) and then drop the temp after the first 30 seconds or so?
Stoves vary greatly in their heat output. Cooks need to learn how their stove and pans respond together, and learn how to control the heat supplied to the ingredients you are cooking. If your ingredients are burning, the heat is too high. You can achieve a good crust without burning and by using lower heat, it may just take longer. You are correct in that this is a balancing act. It's not necessarily the high heat that keeps your food from sticking. Use lower heat, and enough oil to coat the pan. Don't move your chicken until a crust forms. It it is smoking or browning too quickly, turn the heat down, and/or remove the pan from the burner.
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100748 | What are the important traits of a good popcorn machine for home use?
I am aware that this question is somewhat subjective, so I did my best to ask a good subjective question, instead of "What popcorn machine should I buy?".
I recently shared my popcorn-related troubles and got several suggestions on how to improve my microwave popcorn experience. After a discussion I had today, I was suggested to invest in a popcorn machine, as, supposedly, it would make my popcorn better than a microwave.
When looking at some available machines, I saw a vast difference in price, ranging all the way from 20€ up to 100€ (ignoring the professional machines).
This made me wonder what determines the quality of a "good" popcorn machine? Is it only about size? Are there different internal mechanisms? What should I look out for when choosing a popcorn machine for home use?
There are three non-microwave ways to pop popcorn:
an air popper
a plug-in dome popper
a stovetop popper
Each of these makes different popcorn.
The air popper uses no fat, though if you're going to add melted butter you probably don't care. In fact the absence of fat means salt and other powdered flavours don't stick well. You can't burn the popcorn. My air popper also used to blow unpopped kernels all over the kitchen. We eventually repurposed it as a coffee roaster.
The plug-ins require a plug, you add a little oil, and you need to pay attention or you might burn a few kernels. I use coconut oil in mine, and add less butter than I used to add to air-popped corn.
The stovetops are apparently terrific if you want to melt a coating (eg caramel corn) onto the popcorn. I haven't used one.
===
ETA: Two additional options.
If one already has an electric skillet, such as:
With a bit of oil and corn it will hold a steady temperature and do the job without a separate space eating devise. This option takes a little practice to get the temperature that works best for you, and shaking the skillet a couple times while hot is a pain, but this was always my grandparent's preferred popper.
If you do not wish to eliminate the microwave option, several makers produce these:
These dry pop for those who are concerned with oil. Or for those of use who prefer, we dry pop it, then dump on the butter after. This gives the option though of using spices and such after much like an air popper, but in my experience had a higher pop rate that air poppers of packaged microwave popcorn and was much less prone to burning. They do require little concentraters that are inserted and would each hold up for 4-6 batches though.
I have used the stove and it is great for making candied popcorn! As well as just the fluffy goodness we all enjoy.
Since I only eat salted popcorn (occassionally with butter and salt), I think the second kind is probably the best for me, if I understood this correctly.
I'm a fan of the air popper, plus one of the pump/misting sprayers for oil (to get the salt to stick).
Oh, and there's also the 'take up way too much space' appliances that look like small versions of the ones in movie theatres (clear sided box with a heating / stirring unit at the top, some of which also blow hot air to keep it warm)
@Joe do you think people get those for home use?
@KateGregory : my neighbors had one and used it regularly. (although, I think they might've gotten it as a gift vs. buying it themselves) They had a domed one before that, but they'd have to make two or three batches when they had a movie night (every Friday and Saturday night for the most part)
@KateGregory random example: https://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B00GLQDGEY/
For me, the qualities of a good home popcorn machine:
Is it convenient and easy enough to operate that I will use it regularly?
Does it make excellent popcorn?
Is it fast?
Is it easy to clean?
Of course there are many ways to pop corn, as presented in other answers. I've tried most of them.
This tool answers all of the questions above for me. In my opinion, it produces the best popcorn. For me, "best" means (a) all (or nearly all) kernels popped with no burning, and (b) popcorn that is tender, but crunchy.
[I am not affiliated with the company or product, just an impressed consumer who has used it for years.]
Note that a popcorn-specific machine is not necessary. You can simply use a quality (evenly heating) stove-top pot with lid. You add oil then popcorn kernels in a single layer and heat over medium heat, agitating occasionally.
A popcorn popper contains a heater and yet is made out of plastic; this requires competent engineering and the use of proper materials. A good popcorn popper will work reliably. A bad popcorn popper will stop heating properly, melt, or set your house on fire after extended use. (A middling popcorn popper will be underpowered and take a long time to pop the popcorn.)
The resultant popcorn is unlikely to differ between machines, as long as it's not on fire or covered in melted plastic.
(Note: If you like melted plastic on your popcorn, you should add it separately, after popping is complete.)
So basically, any will do fine?
This is a non-answer which has a lot of related words that doesn't answer OP's question.
Even generously judged, this seems an ironic post at best - some inaccuracies included. Before the community vote removes it as “not an answer”, would you rather actually answer the question about the properties of a good popcorn machine?
@Stephie Seriously, it's not an ironic answer. Poppers either work or they don't. It's a simple system, just a blower, a heater, and a grille. It either works or it doesn't.
Well, not all have that setup (are you talking about air poppers specifically?), some are quite different. See the other answer for more examples. And I recently was at a party where the host made popcorn over the campfire in what’s best described as a mesh cage. Nevertheless, how would the asker find a “good” one? What are the characteristics to watch out for?
@Stephie I actually wasn't aware of non-air-popper popcorn machines (other than the commercial ones, of course); blower-based machines are what everybody seems to have. Yes, you could use your stove or microwave or campfire, but the OP was specifically asking for a popcorn machine.
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100587 | Why is my microwave popcorn burned and undercooked at the same time?
I recently bought a new microwave, and started to experience a very bizarre phenomenon when trying to cook microwave popcorn.
For clarification, the Popcorn I am using is pre-packaged and in a paper bag, designed to be put into the microwave at ~800W for ~4 minutes. If it matters, it's called "Kelly Microwave Golden Pop", but I don't want to sound like I'm advertising for them.
With my old microwave, I would just wait until the popping would die down and I would have around 10 seconds between each pop. This would make my popcorn barely not burned, and would not leave too many unpopped kernels.
However, with my new microwave, it doesn't work at all. When going full power, I end up with extremely burned popcorn and half the package unpopped. I tried other power settings, specifically 80%, 50% and 30% power (my microwave only deals in percents, not Watt sadly), but the end result is always the same: Some of the popcorn is already burned, while a lot of it is still unpopped.
I have read that, when food is burning in the microwave, putting it off-center works well, but due to the size of the bag and the microwave, this is not an option for me.
What can I do to save my movie night and get unburned popcorn without throwing half the bag in the bin?
If you know the power of your microwave, you can use that to calculate how to set the power level (eg, 1100W : 70% = 770W) Microwave popcorn instructions used to call for microwaving it for a bit, then shaking it to re-distribute the kernels. I don't know if that's something that's no longer necessary, or if it would help. And there's always a possiblity that you got part of a bad batch, I guess.
Certainly not as convenient, but if you are a popcorn fan, the best popcorn I've made is produced in a Whirley Pop.
@Joe I tried several power levels already, but I never seem to get it right. I always end up with burned popcorn and a lot of unpopped kernels.
A pot with a lid does a better job.
We don't know the power of your old microwave or your new one. Without that information, all we can do is guess. If power reduction &/or shaking don't work, then maybe it's time to consider a different cooking method.
So just as an update, I did what @blacksmith37 suggested and just switched over to a pot and a lid. The difference is night and day. I never get any burned popcorn and I can count the number of unpopped kernels on one hand.
Well if it is burning some of the popcorn I'd say that means it is going for too long or you are setting power too strong, otherwise it wouldn't burn.
If there's still unpopped corn at the end, then it could mean three things I can think of, right now.
Uneven microwave distribution in the chamber, which is a very common issue for which rotating platters have been created.
Poor quality corn maybe mixed varieties which don't pop so easily.
Insufficient humidity. Microwaves heat water well, but not other substances, if there is not enough humidity in the form of water/grease content in the package, or it is unevenly distributed, there may be kernels that never get proper temperature.
Try interrupting the microwave mid cycle and shaking the paper bag around a bit about half way through, instead of doing it all in one go. Make sure the platter is rotating.
Some unpopped kernel is expected regardless.
lol hello boy you are here too xD
I just made some popcorn yesterday, and setting it on 60% power for 4 minutes, then shaking and doing 80% power for 45 seconds, then back to shaking, etc. until most of the corn is popped. I really miss my old microwave already :(
Nice to hear it worked
The explosion of corn kernels comes from heating the moisture inside the kernels. After many kernels have popped there is no longer enough moisture to react to the microwave energy so popped corn starts to burn. Unpopped kernels may be too dry and this suggests a poor quality batch. In turn, the already popped corn burns.
I can tell from the answers that people who don't have this kind of microwave don't get it. I've been making microwave popcorn for decades (my favorite is Orville R Smart Pop) with NO problems on several different microwaves. But this new KitchenAid does exactly what the OP describes. It either burns the popcorn massively or it leaves A LOT unpopped. It usually does both at once. So no you can't wait for the pops to slow down to some rate. The popcorn button does not burn the popcorn but leaves a sizeable fraction unpopped. I've tried different power levels like the OP but that isn't a great solution. It 'helps' but the problem still remains. It seems like the machine is just too powerful to pop the whole bag without burning the early kernals? I'm thinking I may experiment with having a cup of water in there with it to absorb some of the energy? Will report back...
Running at lower power is not the same as using a lower power microwave. A 1250 Watt microwave at 80% power doesn't run at 1000 Watts. It runs at 1250 Watts for 8 seconds, alternating with zero power for 2 seconds. This isn't solving the problem you have anyway, which is uneven heating.
Reposition the bag in the middle of heating it. Just before it would begin to pop, open the door and rotate the bag, or flip it upside down. Depending on the microwave, that could swap the underheated and overheated parts of the bag.
Inverter microwaves don't suffer from this problem
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129591 | Where did the soy and mustard taste go? A lentil shepherd's pie mystery
everyone. I love the website Budget Bytes and the Winter Lentil Stew there is a favorite (link here: https://www.budgetbytes.com/vegan-winter-lentil-stew/), thanks to the addition of mustard and soy. I wanted to incorporate that flavor into a lentil shepherd's pie, so I started with the Budget Bytes Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie (link here: https://www.budgetbytes.com/vegetarian-shepherds-pie/), and omitted the 1 tbsp of tomato paste in favor of 1.5 tbsp soy and 2 tbsp dijon mustard. I chose these amounts based on similar lentil shepherd's pie recipes. Oddly enough, while I could smell the mustard and soy while cooking, the flavor was all but gone when I ate it. I can't figure out where it went! The lentil stew has the same amounts of both seasoning and lentils and the flavor comes through beautifully. Did the flour in the shepherd's pie neutralize it somehow? Thanks!
is it underwhelming in the dish as a whole, or can you not taste it in the "filling" when eaten alone?
I'm not sure I understand. The "filling" IS the entire dish, aside from the mashed potato on top, and I wouldn't expect to taste it there. But the flavor was underwhelming in every bite.
Mustard loses it‘s characteristic flavor if heated, especially if heated over a longer time. If you want that bite, you need to find a way to add it late in the process.
Exactly, I'm assuming by bite you mean both filling and mash at the same time. I'm asking if it tastes fine without the mash. That would imply a dilution problem.
Please avoid writing just "soy" when you mean soy sauce / shoyu! This can be quite confusing, though here it is fairly clear from the context.
Lightbender, there is no mustard in the mash.
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129885 | Words of wisdom on balancing flavors in a dish with multiple components?
I'm very fond of "bowl" recipes (like Buddha bowls) which involve multiple components prepared separately but combined at the final stage. Every variation involves some cooked and/or seasoned components, some fresh, and occasionally a dressing. Is there some sort of rule of thumb for knowing how much to cook and season, and how much to leave plain? I'd love to make my own, but I don't want to overwhelm the dish with too many competing flavors. (And I don't really "pick things up" just by reading or experience, I do best with a rule or basic idea that I can follow). Thanks!
Unfortunately there's no answer to this that wouldn't be entirely based on opinions, so this has been closed on that basis. It's also very, very broad, with hundreds of cuisines to choose from. As a basic approach I would pick a cuisine you like and use recipes.
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124611 | Are some dried beans drier than others?
I buy dried chickpeas to make hummus, and since I don't use tahini or oil, the softness of the beans is important. I typically quick-soak a cup of dried chickpeas with 1/4 tsp baking soda (bring them to a boil, boil for 2 minutes, then let sit for an hour), then drain, rinse, and simmer them for about 40 minutes, by which time some have begun to split. Then I remove the skins before adding flavors and blending.
Some times this yields perfect, creamy hummus, and sometimes it comes out dry and crumbly. My question is whether all dried beans are equally dry, or some are just drier than others. Thanks!
Thanks so much. It's good to know that it wasn't me.
It took me 2 hours to cook dried chickpeas with results no better than canned. Thus, canned now. If blending, why remove skins? Without tahini, where's the flavor?
I would swear that we already had an answer to this on SA, but I can't find it.
Short answer: yes, some beans are drier than others, and some are unusable.
Long answer: Dried chickpeas can fail you in two ways.
First, like all dried beans, they can be too old. At a certain point, sufficiently old chickpeas will not absorb water at all, and are unusuable. When they're getting close to that age, they will still cook but will have very poor texture.
Second, there is a problem specific to chickpeas: they have to be heat-treated while being dried due to contamination risks. In low-quality chickpeas, sometimes they get overheated (basically burned) during heat-treatment, and such chickpeas cannot be used. Again, if the overheating is marginal, you will get a bad texture you can't fix.
The solution to this is to buy your dried chickpeas from a high-quality provider, ideally one that prints the date of production on the package. Here in the USA bean producers like this include Rancho Gordo or Sunshine Farms. Such chickpeas are usually 4X as expensive as "generic" chickpeas, but it's a question of how many failed batches of hummus you can tolerate.
They are all similarly dry at around 18% moisture. In the US, beans with a higher moisture content are graded "high moisture." Fresh dried beans certainly take less time to soften than older beans. The quality of the bean also varies, which I could see impacting your final product. If you enjoy making your own humus, I would recommend seeking out high quality dried beans. The difference is noticeable. All dried beans are not alike.
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124160 | Metric for adjusting spices?
Is there a handy metric or equation for estimating how much to adjust a spice when adjusting the size or volume of a dish?
For example: a tagine recipe has 2 cups of water and uses 1/4 tsp of cinnamon, if I want to turn it into more of a soup by adding 2 more cups of water while maintaining the strength of flavors, does the cinnamon increase to 1/2 tsp (double to mirror the amount of water) or 3/4 tsp? Thank you.
When you're talking about proportions, you need to think about the proportions of everything, which your question doesn't - a tagine may have other sources of liquid than the water, and are you planning to adjust any other ingredients or just water+spice?
It also depends how fresh your spices are. I remember when I swapped my supplier from 'supermarket' to 'good' I had to learn to reduce proportions I'd had memorised for years [Bay leaves were the most striking, I had to quarter my previous amounts]. A good rule is to always know you're under-spicing initially, especially on a long cook where you've plenty of time to make adjustments. You can always add more half way through, but you can't take any out.
very related, maybe even a duplicate: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/9458/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-that-you-shouldnt-multiply-seasonings-when-multi
It's a duplicate. Aaronut's answer fits this question perfectly. Melissa, check out that other question.
@FuzzyChef I apologize, I didn't know this question was a duplicate. Thank you for taking the time to reply.
Melissa: No need to apologize! That's why we mark duplicates ... so you can find the earlier answer. Hopefully it helped you.
If you're trying to determine a quantified metric, it's important that you define precisely what characteristic it is that you're quantifying and comparing. For example, are you referring to the "heat" level? That would be measured by SHU, and is not always equal ("cayenne pepper" can come in varying mesh and SHU's).
Water isn’t the only other ingredient that’s in the recipe. If you double (or even triple) the spices while only doubling one other ingredient, it is very likely that the spices will be more prominent.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I would recommend making the dish once while only adding the additional water, tasting it, and then adjusting the seasoning if required. Note that adding spices later in the recipe will mean that you may not get a chance to toast or otherwise bloom the spices, but they also won’t have had a chance to harmonize the same way, so they could end up either more prominent or less prominent vs an early addition depending on the specific dish.
Agree. There's always a dilemma with aromatics, though - you can bloom them & let them long cook, or you can add late for the 'nose' when serving… or you can do both. Definitely needs practise, though. You learn this stuff with experiment & repetition…
I was going to increase all the spices by a similar ratio.
@Melissa, it’s not just the other spices. It’s all of the other ingredients. If it was an infusion that’s just water and spices, that’s one thing. If it’s a stew that you’re turning into a soup, then there are vegetables, meat, etc.
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123737 | Heat levels when reducing balsamic vinegar
I'm going to attempt reducing a balsamic vinegar into a syrup, and while most recipes I've found recommend bringing it to just a boil and then lowering the temperature, none of them ever specify what setting I should use to bring up the initial temperature. High? Medium? It seems like it would make a big difference in how fast it reduces and perhaps even the taste. Thanks!
This is going to depend on your stove, the quantity you're making, and the size and design of the pot you're using.
It really doesn’t matter. Vinegar is rather a non-viscous fluid; convection will ensure that, no matter what rate it heats at, it will heat evenly. And since it’ll be spending an extended period of time at boiling temperature, the amount of time it spends below boiling temperature isn’t going to make much of a difference.
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123034 | Adding more seasonings to chili after cooking
I tried a new recipe for sweet potato black bean chili today and while it tastes good, I don't think there's enough liquid to keep it all from drying out. I'd like to add at least 1 cup of vegetable broth and then some more of the seasonings to keep the flavor, but will it work given that the chili has already cooled? Can I add it to the pot as is, or do I need to heat up everything again? The recipe I used is here: https://www.brandnewvegan.com/recipes/vegan-sweet-potato-chili#tasty-recipes-24873-jump-target
Thank you!
you couldn't just add raw spices, but you could dry fry the spices(only takes a few seconds), add the broth and then add that mix to the chilli.
As your chili is starch thickened (with the cornmeal and sweet potato), I would recommend the following when reheating:
Bloom the spices by heating them in a sufficiently large pot. (Either dry or with a bit of oil)
Add your extra liquid to the spices, and heat it to let it steep for a little bit
Add a spoonful or two of the chili and stir or whisk to thicken the liquid
Add another couple of spoonfuls of the chili and repeat
Add the rest of the chili to warm up.
You can add liquid straight into the chili, but it can sometimes be difficult to mix in if the base is fairly thick. It’s especially difficult if it has cooled with a starch thickened sauce. You can also add seasonings later, but they won’t necessarily be as fully flavored as if you bloom them first, and you may need extra cooking time to let the flavors meld if you add them all at the end. (And I would at a minimum reheat it before trying to add the seasoning)
You can also consider changing the flavor slightly when serving. You can add chopped herbs (cilantro, culantro, parsley, etc), something acidic (sour cream, lime juice, chamoy sauce, pickled jalapeños, a vinegary hot sauce), other hot sauces, minced onion, etc.
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121597 | Why are canned beans softer than the ones I soak myself?
I've been experimenting with making my own hummus from both canned and dried beans that I soak and cook myself, and the canned ones inevitably come out creamier and blend more smoothly. Does anyone know what the "magic" is that makes the difference? Thanks!
I don’t know how significant it is, but large scale canneries can measure the moisture content and adjust the cooking if needed. And there’s little chance of them trying to cook that bag of beans that’s been in the back of the pantry for 3+ years
The key to really smooth, creamy hummus isn't really the softness of the beans, it's removing the skins.
I have found refrigerating the beans after cooking makes a significant improvement to the creaminess as well. I learned this from Alton Brown's Good Eats.
Small trick that might help. Heat up the water you are going to use to soak them.
Since it sounds like your goal is just to make creamy/smooth hummus, not necessarily to exactly duplicate canned beans, I'd suggest soaking with salt and baking soda (15g salt and 5g baking soda per liter of water is a good starting point; be sure to rinse before cooking). Baking soda alone will improve texture, but if you're going to be adding salt at any point during cooking, this is a good time to do it, since it helps with texture as well. It may take a bit of experimentation to match your preferred saltiness, but the point is, get the baking soda and any salt in there during the soak, not just during actual cooking.
I picked this up from Serious Eats, and my experience is consistent with that article: with every type of bean I've tried, I've gotten really wonderfully creamy beans, and they cook quickly too!
One other factor might be the liquid from the canned beans, if you haven't been rinsing them. In that case I'd try to cook your own without a ton of excess water, so that you'll have more substantial liquid, more similar to canned beans.
And, indeed, another difference of canned beans .vs. my homecooked beans is the higher sodium content. For me, that favors the homecooked, and I'll get creamy by slow-food methods, but if sodium makes for creamier, faster, and you either want it or don't mind it, should work.
@Ecnerwal on the other hand canned chickpeas here are rarely salted at all (a few brands are but supermarket own aren't). And they'll certainly make good hummus. I use dried, soaked with baking soda and slow cooked, if I add any salt it's at the end, to taste. That turns out pretty good unless I discard too much cooking water
@Ecnerwal I'm not really sure what you're suggesting changing, but I've clarified why the salt is there, and what your options are. In particular, this isn't an either-or thing; if you prefer lower-but-non-zero sodium, adding it during soaking is still relevant.
...I'm suggesting your answer appears to be valid? The fact that I have a different answer does not mean I'm attacking your answer if I comment on it. Heck, I upvoted it.
I see, sorry, am used to comments being used primarily to suggest improvements, thanks.
The higher pH allows hemicelluloses to dissolve away quicker. The sodium displaces calcium/magnesium and their reinforcing effects. Hard ward contains more calcium.
Canned beans are pressure cooked for quite a while.
A fairly stock bit of advice on boiling beans for hummus is to go longer than a typical time you might find on the bag as a recommendation for cooking time - 1.5 to 2 times longer (with adequate water.) That is what I actually do, and it works.
If you really want them like canned beans, use a pressure cooker at 15 lbs/ 1 bar probably also a bit longer than the "recommended" time which tends to be for cooked, but firm. Take sensible steps to avoid "stupid things people do with pressure cookers and beans" like not allowing room for expansion and plugging the vents. Or actually put them in canning jars and pressure can them.
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121391 | Why are beans I soak myself always smaller than canned?
I've taken to buying bags of dried garbanzo beans instead of canned, however, no matter how long I soak them, they never expand to be as large as the canned, pre-cooked variety. This means when I try to roast them according to most of the recipes I find, they end up burned. I know there are different types of beans in that family, but the canned kind and the dried kind do appear to be the same. Can anyone tell me where the discrepancy in size comes from?
The canned ones are cooked as well as being soaked. You don't mention cooking the dry ones, just soaking them...
Ecnerwal: that seems like an answer, post it?
@FuzzyChef done, but was seeking confirmation that what is implied by the wording of the question is the case.
You title says "beans". Are the question and its answers generalizable to all beans? If not, you should update your title to reflect that your question is specific to garbanzo beans.
Dried beans swell when soaked, and swell further when cooked. Your question implies that you are only soaking, not cooking the dried beans - which would both mean they would not get as large as the cooked canned ones, and that they would presumably roast differently than the cooked canned ones.
I employ the difference in making felafel with soaked, dried beans rather than canned beans - the soaked, dried beans need no binder, while cooked or canned beans need some sort of binder such as wheat flour.
It may well be possible to roast soaked, dried, uncooked beans, but it may require different time and temperature than cooked/canned ones.
Incidentally, if you have the time, cooking your own from dried (when you want cooked beans) is far superior to canned ones on all fronts (taste, cost, amount of salt, etc.) except being exceedingly fast.
If you factor in the energy cost of cooking the beans, and the already small price difference between buying dried or canned I doubt soaking and cooking them yourself is cheaper.
@blues On the Walmart website, a bag with 13 servings (120 cals) of chickpeas costs $1.28. A can with 3.5 servings (also 120 cals) of chickpeas costs $0.78. Buying 13 servings with the cans would cost 0.78*13/3.5 = $2.90. I very much doubt that $2.90 - $1.28 = $1.62 of energy is used in cooking the beans. More like a few cents. A lot of the cost is probably in the can.
@StevenGubkin never mind that a bag is smaller to store than the equivalent in cans.
@StevenGubkin and if you buy big bags of beans cheap, the saving is greater still. I get a good selection from a local Bangladeshi-run supermarket. Slow cooking is good, 6 servings take just over 1kWh
@blues I do factor it in, and it is cheaper. Tasting better too doesn't hurt the math at all.
There’s different varieties of chickpeas (garbanzo beans). Canned chickpeas I’ve seen have all been Kabuli, a large and light-colored variety. Dried chickpeas in bags are an even split between Kabuli and Desi, a smaller and darker-colored variety. It’s possible that the dry ones you have are Desi chickpeas; that would explain not only why they didn’t expand as much, but also why they seemed to burn.
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114259 | Dried herbs instead of bouquet garni?
I've only recently heard about bouquet garni via a recipe I want to try, but I don't always have access to fresh herbs. This particular garni calls for two bay leaves, one large sprig of sage, and one large or two small sprigs of rosemary. I know the bay leaf isn't meant to be eaten, and I know the taste will be different, but can I use dried herbs and just leave them in the pot?
(This is the recipe I want to make: https://rainbowplantlife.com/creamy-white-bean-soup-with-kale-and-gremolata/#comment-5951)
Thanks!
There's nothing really special about a bouquet garni. Don't let the French name make this seem more intimidating than it is. It is just a bunch of herbs. It has no special function other than making the herbs easier to remove than if they weren't bundled together.
So then the meat of this question is really: can you substitute dried rosemary and dried sage for fresh rosemary and fresh sage in a bean soup?
The answer is: probably
Dried herbs can vary more in quality than fresh herbs, since it's possible that the dried herbs have been sitting around for a very long time. Very old dried herbs will have lost much of their flavor and should generally be avoided.
But if your dried herbs are relatively new, they'll probably be fine. Here's what Cook's Illustrated had to say about dried rosemary and sage:
In all but one application, tasters preferred fresh herbs to dry. Chili was the exception; in this dish, dried oregano was the favorite. A common criticism of dried herbs was that they had lost many of the subtleties and nuances of fresh herbs, tasting “dusty” and “stale.” Meanwhile, fresh herbs tasted “clean” and “bright.” Still, there were a few instances in which some dried herbs, though not preferred, were a passable substitute. In addition to oregano, dried rosemary, sage, and thyme fared reasonably well in recipes involving fairly long cooking times (more than 20 minutes) and a good amount of liquid.
https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/9261-science-substituting-dried-herbs-for-fresh
The recipe linked in the question calls for 18-20 minutes of cooking, which is slightly less than Cook's Illustrated recommends there. I'd be surprised if a couple of minutes made much of a difference, but if you're concerned, you could cook this soup for longer.
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100697 | thickening cream
I use corn starch & 1/2 and 1/2 to make my cannoli cream. I use a double boiler. My recipe calls for a lot of stirring up to an hour in order to get the thickness I need to stuff cannoli shells.
My question is that the mixture never comes to a boil, so what am I doing wrong? & is it necessary to stir for so long?
I look forward to your answer.
thank you
Joann
Please edit your question to include the filling recipe you're following. (Note: The actual recipe, not a link to it.)
If it's not boiling, you probably don't have the stove hot enough. Also, stiring cools down food since exposing a higher surface area to the air.
@Bee The stuff is in a double boiler, meaning it's not going to come to a boil regardless of how high the burner is set.
In my experience, cannoli is usually filled with a ricotta based "cream"/filling. Sharing your recipe would be helpful.
@Sneftel whatever the recipe is, that's probably the answer to her question right there.
Without knowing the exact recipe, it is difficult to give a precise answer, but my initial thoughts are that you have an issue with low temperature.
For cream to thicken you need to either a) Evaporate a lot of water from the cream itself or b) Use a thickening agent such as flour or cornflour. Both these approaches need higher temperatures than are generally achieved with your average Bain Marie (65 - 100C depending on the materials used), with cornflour thickening at 95C and flour at boiling point. While you will achieve some evaporation at lower temperatures, it will take forever.
Different materials have widely different efficiencies when used as double boilers. I'd check the temperature of your mixture, and maybe consider using a stainless steel bowl rather than glass, plastic, ceramic or Pyrex which will improve the heat conductivity a lot. Alternatively, you might need a different bowl / pan setup, as a bowl in a large saucepan (a long way from the simmering water) may not reach temperature.
If low temperature is crucial to your recipe, you could substitute gelatin as the thickening agent, that thickens down to 35C.
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100967 | Discoloured white chocolate chips
When baking rasberry and white chocolate muffins, the chocolate chips come out brown and discoloured on top and white in the middle. The taste of them is not affected. Does anyone have any (hopefully simple) solutions to make sure they come out nice and white. Also, the muffins were not overcooked, they came out nicely baked, fluffy on inside, not burnt anywhere.
Have you tried changing the brand of the chocolate chips?
This is a very easy fix. If you simply coat the chips in flour before adding them to the mix, and then gently fold them in, you should get no discoloration, and the chips will stay suspended and not settle to the bottom. For gluten-free recipes, coating with 10x powdered sugar will also work, as it contains cornstarch. The trick is coating the sugar-containing items with starch of some kind.
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101233 | Straining seeds from jam
I have a jar of real fruit jam, made without pectin, it tastes fantastic but the berry seeds are extremely hard. Can I reheat it in a pot on the stove and strain out the seeds and put it back in the jar and keep it refrigerated?
For a jam, (assuming with fruit solids), be aware that since you will have to force it through a strainer whether you warm it up or not, it will lose some of it's fruity texture. But it will taste the same. It will be easier if you warm it, but do NOT let it get hot enough to steam or bubble. And yes, keep refrigerated.
My reference is 65 years of making my own.
Out of curiosity, could you expand on the reasoning to not let it steam or bubble? I know the bubbling would be a result of boiling, hence more cooking, but steaming would only require a low heat.
Presumably because once it steams, it's loosing water and changing the overall consistency. This could cause it to set harder than before
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101251 | Baking Powder in scones
For scones can I mix cold butter with self raising flour and then add the wet ingredients the next day. This is to save time in the morning?
I do the same as you, Vivien. I find that mixing in the liquids in advance leads to too much gluten development and some outgassing from the baking powder, but that if the butter/flour mixture is kept cold enough it doesn't hurt to mix it the night before.
(Anyway, it takes longer for the oven to heat up than it takes to mix together the remaining ingredients and shape the scones.)
No, nothing that drastic. Modern baking powders don't really do much of the gas production until you heat them up.
I regularly prep scones completely the night before. As in, I make the entire dough, place on a baking sheet, and put in the fridge until morning. So you can even go a step further and add the wet ingredients too the night before to save even more time in the morning.
You want to make sure you're using 'double acting' baking powder if you do this. (most of it these days is ... but it someone's trying to stay away from aluminum or only shops at health food stores, it might not be). Double acting powders produce gas when they're moistened and again when they're heated.
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102436 | How to make peanut butter less dry
When I make peanut butter at home, in a food processor, it comes out reasonably creamy as in store bought peanut butter, but when I put it in my mouth, it sucks the moisture from my mouth and is too dry and hard to swallow.
How can I prepare it so that it is easier to consume and closer to store bought peanut butters. I tried adding a couple of spoons of oil. Would adding honey help?
Have you compared your ingredients to the ingredients on the label of store bought peanut butter?
Add refined peanut oil. Add more than a couple of tbsp. Add it generously. Try using peanuts from a different source.
What peanuts would you recommend
Commercial peanut butter has added sugar and salt. Also emulsifiers to keep the oil from separating over time. Once I asked a friend why there was about a half inch of oil on their home-made peanut butter ; they said it is peanut oil and just needs to be stirred occasionally.
I use sustainable gourmet palm oil. I got it on Amazon. Smooth creamy peanut butter at room temperature, and oil doesn't separate, no need to refrigerate
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102445 | Why does a vegetable soup turn sour?
I made a vegetable soup with peas, onion, garlic, potatoes, celery, cubed chicken stock, salt, and olive oil. I put it in two containers, one open and the other airtight, and in the fridge. After 6 days, the soup in the open container had turned sour and had a vinegar taste, while the one in the airtight container had a normal taste. So I presume that oxidation plays a role in the vinegar taste.
Why does a vegetable soup turn sour?
What's the temperature of your fridge? Could it be due to fermentation?
@aris's comment is technically correct, but I would like to point out that a closed container would not have saved you from the soup going bad. Cooking is not sterilization, and there are enough microbes left over in your soup to spoil it even if you seal it hermetically.
@LoveBites An ambient temperature sensor shows 6ºC, 43ºF, but it could be lower in case it has limited sensing range.
@rumtscho If the microbes require air, the airtight container should have slowed their growth, which explains the different result with open and closed containers, right?
A lot of types of bacteria (and sometimes other microbes) produce waste products that can taste "sour." And soup/stock is a good growth medium for microbes, which is why most food safety organizations recommend only keeping soup for 3-4 days in the fridge. Six days is past the point where the soup is still likely to be "fresh"; the sour taste is most likely spoilage of some sort.
As for the question of why the airtight container was different from the open one: it could be that the open container absorbed more microbes that were floating around in the air, or it could be that the open container allowed more oxygen for certain types of microbes to grow better, or both.
Bottom line: when soup turns "sour" unexpectedly, it's probably time to throw it out.
Thanks! The consensus is that it was bacteria and not oxidation like I thought. The fridge has a sticker with "Anti-bacteria, natural silver". In any case, I can make my home soups last longer in an airtight container.
@miguelmorin - I'm not sure what an "anti-bacteria" fridge is, but no fridge can prevent random microbes from floating around after you open the door. Also, as rumtscho pointed out in comments, cooking is not sterilization. Some microbes could remain in spore form even after cooking, which can then spoil soup. And even small numbers of microbes present on the bowl you stored the soup in, or in the air while you were pouring the soup, could eventually grow. That the covered version stayed fresh longer could also be a coincidence. As I noted, soup/stock is generally an excellent growth medium.
@miguelmorin the "anti-bacteria, natural silver" prevents microbial growth on the surface it is applied. In that case, if the bacteria stuck to the wall of the fridge they'll not grow, but fortunately for them, they fell on the soup.
Of course if your soup is a nice Polish barsch, fermenting in open air for a few days to make it sour is just part of the process.
@LeeDanielCrocker - true, though I assume if the question was concerning such a process, the questioner would have said so. (As I noted in my final sentence: if soup turns sour unexpectedly.)
So when you are making a soup you should put in some of your veggies 30 min prior to serving like celery. What happens is when celery is over cooked it creates a acid that will ruin your soup, and sadly this is likely to happen if you have leftovers even when done properly. Now this can be countered or hidden with creams, carrots, or cabbage that add sweetness, but what I do is use celery seed which give it all the flavor without any down side. Take care though celery seed is very strong flavor so it only takes a little, and it should not be ingested by pregnant women as it is one of the herbs used for abortion just like nutmeg.
I was experiencing this, and found that I was the culprit. I had been dumping my used tofu water into the soup pot, to extend it, thinking it would at least have more flavor than just water. The fermentation that had leeched from the tofu was what did it.
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117059 | How to remove salt from sun-dried tomatoes
I have a large packet of sun-dried tomatoes, the type that are preserved dry with salt rather than the type sold in jars covered with olive or sunflower oil. It's a large packet so I don't want to throw them out but they are much saltier than the ones I usually buy, the packet says 11% salt. Even after pouring boiling water over them and leaving them to soak for 30 minutes (as the packet recommends) leaves them too salty for my palette. Any ideas would be appreciated.
you could quickly rinse them under running water.
Cook them in dishes.
I use sun dried tomatoes in my go-to pasta sauce. While mine are usually in oil, I have used others in the past.
I suggest thinking of them in the same way as anchovies. On their own, they can be near inedible, but when cooked in a dish, they almost dissolve into pure flavor. The same can be done with your tomatoes: After a while, cooking lets the salt migrate into the remaining dish, provided there’s enough liquid. Just adjust the salt as needed.
If you want sun dried tomatoes on their own, get another, less salty kind that suits the use case.
Sometimes all soaking isn’t worth the fuss in my opinion, especially as soaking (which would be able to dissolve the salt) kind of negates why they were dried in the first place and you would probably lose flavor. Plus, if you tried doing the whole pack in one go, you could end up with no longer shelf stable ex-dried tomatoes.
Two potential solutions:
Buy a different brand, one that's not packed in salt. Most sun-dried tomatoes are air dried and have minimal salt content, even if they're not packed in oil.
Soak these the way you would salt cod: in the fridge, for a day or more, changing the water 2-3 times. This should remove the salt, but might also turn them to mush.
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117998 | Best way to preserve guanciale (or other cured meats) in the fridge
I have a 1.2 KG piece of guanciale currently still vacuum sealed. It will take a few months to eat so, once opened, what should it be wrapped it in to maximize it's lifespan in the fridge?
Are the following suitable?
Baking Paper
Freezer Paper
Parchment Paper
Cling film aka Plastic wrap
Cheesecloth - I have something called: grade 90 unbleached cotton cheesecloth
Butcher's Paper - It's expensive in the UK because it only seems to be sold in large rolls (£18 for 50 metres on Amazon)
Any of those wraps will be fine. My typical practice, whether curing my own or purchasing a large amount, is to portion in to smaller pieces. Those destined for storage get vacuum sealed. If I have a lot, I freeze them. The portions for daily use either get wrapped in butcher paper (if I have it) or, more often than not, placed in a zip-lock bag and refrigerated.
If it is a cured product then it does not need refrigeration. A cured product has an indefinite lifespan, that was the whole point of curing to increase the lifespan of meat products.
Keep it away from bugs and rats and it should be OK. Maybe if you live in a humid tropic area you may have problems with mold growth but that is a stretch.
It'll go bad as soon as you open the bag.
Cut in manageable chunks/portions, wrap in cling film, and freeze each chunk individually.
If you have access to a vacuum machine, you could also vacuum each portion before freezing.
I think you mean “start to go bad”, rather than it’ll immediately go bad upon opening.
The point of curing meats is that they don't go bad as soon as raw meat. The exact expiry date will depend on the curing process used, and should be noted on the packaging OP has. Freezing is indeed an option, but storing in the fridge should also be one, unless the OP bought something that is only pseudo-cured.
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102605 | How to make spaghetti stick together?
I am a person that likes spaghetti that is stuck together, al dente, so it's nice and chewy.
I haven't been able to find any advice on how to cook spaghetti so that it sticks together, but rather the contrary, as it seems most people would prefer spaghetti that is separated.
So, logically, I did exactly the opposite of what these sources recommended so that it would stick together (not stirring, not letting it boil so much that it separates itself), which seems to work well, but not as much as I would like it to. Some of it sticks together, but not all of it.
Is there a way I could make spaghetti such that all of it would stick together ALL the time? Like just one big clump?
Have you tried boiling it more than the required time? That makes it sticky, but also mushy and extra soft
Easy....cook per the package instruction, with no oil in water. Drain well through a strainer. Allow to sit in the strainer or in a bowl long enough to allow the moisture to flash off. Your pasta will be sticky and clumpy. To further enhance the effect, refrigerate. Saucing or oil will separate the strands, If you like to eat it that way, there are recipes for using leftover spaghetti, and cooking it with egg, that results in a sort of pasta fritatta. You might enjoy that as well.
But I was hoping more for something that was a bit more fresh: I particularly wouldn't want to let it sit for 15 mins and definitely wouldn't want to put it in the fridge: I'd want to just drain it and eat it.
@NotAPro, you don't need to leave it 15 for it to stick, just long enough so that the water evaporates off it. The type of pasta you use will also help, make sure it's a fairly cheap brand
Agree with @Bee. I edited my response. It might not take 15 min.
1) Heavily salt your pasta water. Kosher salt is recommended, because it does not contain anti-clumping agents that you do not need in pasta water. The salt will season your pasta, and is a requirement for good tasting pasta.
2) Do not oil your pasta water. Adding oil to your pasta water is largely superficial, and does not really help prevent a boil-over. When you go to strain your pasta, it does cause the pasta to be poured through oily water, however, which will leave a thin layer of oil on the pasta, and prevent both the pasta from sticking together - and - the sauce from sticking to the pasta. Just don't do this.
3) Do not rinse your pasta. Rinsing your pasta after straining removes all the leftover starches on the surface of the pasta. The leftover starches are necessary to both let pasta stick together, as well as for the sauce to stick to the pasta. If you rinse your pasta, your sauce will not adhere to the pasta - which is bad. For your purposes, not rinsing the pasta will also help it clump together better.
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102627 | Will chopped up dried fruit still be fine to use after it's been sitting in the fridge for about 3 weeks?
I was making some fruit balls, like raw/bliss type balls. I chopped up some dates (dried), dried apricots, dried apple, and sultanas; I put these in a bowl and poured over a small amount of boiling water to soften them a bit, and stirred in some cocoa powder and a few drops of liquid stevia.
Then I got busy with other things and never made the balls. The mixture has been covered and refrigerated since then, about 3 weeks ago.
Is this still safe to use? I'm thinking the dried fruit would have become partially re-hydrated by the boiling water.
Thanks
The process that preserves fruit in a drying situation is the significant reduction of water activity in the product, which inhibits bacterial growth. It is impossible to know how much you re-hydrated the product, but you certainly increased the water activity significantly. Then, you added other ingredients. All of this increases the potential for bacterial growth.
Of course, refrigeration also slows bacterial growth, however, for me, there are too many unknowns here, from the source and condition of the fruit, to the nature of the additional ingredients and the time between re-hydration and refrigeration. Three days is probably fine. Three weeks would concern me, and I would not recommend use.
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102788 | Bought a new pre-seasoned cast iron and not sure if seasoning is good
Noob on cast iron skillets here.
I've been in love with this type of cooking for a while and just bought yesterday on amazon my first skillet.
It's not a Lodge but a Utopian Kitchen (Chinese manufacturer).
I've used it yesterday for the first time and since it's pre-seasoned I didn't do anything before usage, just a quick wash with cold water.
I've noticed that on the first heating a circle in the skillet appeared. And it's still visible today after cooking some meat yesterday.
I'm not sure if the "circle" means that the pre-seasoning is not "well-done".
By looking at other questions here, a common practice is to season again the skillet.
Is it what I should do in my case?
What are the parameters to evaluate if a seasoning is good or bad?
I've seen similar things on a couple of pre-seasoned pans (one of them a Lodge). My suspicion is that the uneven heating of the pan leads the seasoning in one area to burn, while the other area completes the polymerization that began during pre-seasoning.
The number one thing that people do wrong with cast iron is worrying too much about the seasoning. Seasoning will basically just happen eventually; manually seasoning the pan is just an optional means to shortcut a longer period of natural seasoning through cooking; actual problems with the surface (rust, caked-on carbon, and... I think that's it) are thoroughly obvious.
Seasoning is as seasoning does. A cast-iron pan will never be as non-stick as a teflon-coated pan, but it should display superior food release compared to a bare steel pan. So just... cook with the thing. Differences in shininess should be ignored; differences in stickiness should not be.
thanks for the clarification! I've used it again and will keep on going without season it again as long as it doesn't stick!
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96837 | Has my olive oil gone bad?
I purchased a gallon of amazing Greek olive oil a few months ago. It has some floaty wisps in it now. Is it still safe?
Welcome to Seasoned Advice! Please include some more information so that people can give useful answers. I, for one, can't tell much from "floaty wisps". Is there a way you could upload a photo? Also, how was it stored (container, temperature)? In general, the more information you provide, the more likely it is to get a good answer.
I purchased it in January, and I believe that it was pressed in December. It is from a small organic grove near Sparta, Greece. I store it in a glass gallon jug in the darkest corner of my pantry, taking out a cruet at a time for use. The “wisps” do not show up when I try to take a picture. The oil doesn’t smell or taste rancid.
What's the temperature where you store it?
I see expensive olive oils in the store with floaty wisps in them. I assume that people will actually pay that price and they're still good. Looking at the ingredients list ("olive oil"), I would have to guess that they're olive fragments. Are you sure the floaty wisps weren't there from the start?
It seems just freezing. Does it look like having white flakes?
From your descriptions it seems just freezing of some of the oil components.
When the oil is kept at low enough T, it is naturally subjected to partial of even full freezing.
White wisps, flakes and even little solid spherical drops can be seen, which tend to deposit at the bottom but are about floating in the volume if the recipient is moved.
This is totally normal, right as water inevitably becomes ice when the temperature is about 0 °C.
In the olive oil case, a denser liquid forms starting at about 12/10 Celsius and becomes evident as described above when the T is about 5 or 6 °C.
This is a normal occurrence during winter time whenever the oil is transported and/or stored in caves, supermarket corners, and even at home like in storeroom or balconies.
The oil slowly recovers its liquid clear appearance if left at normal room temperature and most important it is still safe and its organoleptic characteristics are basically unchanged, too.
There are tests based on freezing behaviour as for oils will have specific T profiles depending on their composition and possible treatments (e.g. filtration, ..) they could have been submitted to.
At a very deep level of discussion, an oil that underwent freezing might be susceptible of a faster rancidification, as for in the while the crystallized fat part is unprotected by natural radical scavengers such as phenols compounds naturally present. But this should matter to those dealing with the storage of trade/business amount of oil.
Recommended storage conditions are in dark and at temperature in the range 13 to 18 °C.
Here is a picture of a quite severe freezing:
Enjoy your oil.
I used to work in a grocery store, in a cold part of the world, that sold a LOT of olive oil. Depending on the weather, our oils would come in with "wisps" regularly, due to a partial freezing on the delivery truck; in colder weather, it would start looking like the picture above. It always went away when warmed up in the building.
It should be good for quite a while. I would smell it, if it smells racid then it's gone bad. Also I might want to strain out the wispys.
This seems rather subjective. Can you define "quite a while"? and/or, How should Greek Olive Oil be stored?
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114335 | Food safety and botulism indicators for pressure canned goods
Several months ago I canned some ham and pea soup, following this recipe verbatim. All went well and the jars have been sitting in my dark pantry ever since.
This was my very first time (ever) using a pressure canner, and so I have no idea what to expect. I'd like to crack one of the jars open and have some pea soup for dinner this week. At first glance, everything looks ok:
But then I noticed there is a lighter green (slimy looking) film on the very top of the soup:
Is this normal, or does this mean its gone bad?
More generally, with pressure canning recipes, what is a good way to tell if the food is safe to consume?
I've heard of the following approach:
Open the lid and confirm you hear the popping sound (the seal breaking), and let it sit in the open for a few minutes, then put the lid back on and put it in the fridge
Wait a day, take it out and inspect
If there is any white foamy substance that sprung up overnight (strong indicator of botulism) or if there are strong off-putting odors, toss it
Otherwise have a bite and wait a day
If by the next day you haven't developed any upset stomach or other GI issues, it is very likely safe to consume the rest
Is this a safe system to follow here? Any other practices or methods anybody can think of? Thanks in advance!
Did you sanitize your jars (boiling all the jars inside, boil the lids, rings, tongs, etc) before doing the sealing step? If you just took the jars directly without that step, you probably have bad instructions, I didn't see that part of the process in the link you provided.
@RonBeyer Pressure canning sterilizes the jars and lids just as it sterilizes the contents. There's no need for a separate step. You might be thinking of low-temperature canning, like one might do with fruit preserves.
The layer on the top is either separated fat from the ham and bouillon cubes, or a bacterial and/or fungal growth (aka a "pellicle"). If it feels greasy and/or brittle and becomes transparent when heated, it was just fat. If it feels rubbery and maintains its coherence when heated, it was a pellicle. A pellicle is not an indication of a botulinum infection, but it's definitely an indication that you screwed up the canning process and that the contents are inedible.
There is no way for a home cook to determine if a can of food is safe to eat. That would require special expertise and lab work (including, when testing for botulism, injecting mice with the stuff). Instead, what you do is use a trustworthy recipe, make sure you're following the recipe properly (with a canner that reaches the appropriate pressure for the appropriate amount of time), and check that the vacuum seal has not been compromised before eating. That is, rather than seeing whether the food is safe, you ensure that your process guarantees safe food.
The steps you posted are horrible -- neither safe, nor effective, and betraying a fundamental misunderstanding of what botulism even is -- and you should no longer trust whoever wrote them. "Have a bite and wait a day"? Cripes on a cracker.
Thanks @Sneftel (+1), do pellicles typically have an odor to them?
Possibly but not necessarily, and so might canned pea soup.
FWIW, my money's on congealed fat. It's exactly the right color for it, and something growing on such a thick soup would generally be fuzzy, not compact. The wrinkly surface gives me pause, but could have happened when you were moving the soup.
I ran this same question by a master canner I know through someone else. She said the same thing: likely fat, give it a smell test, try heating it up and breaking it apart, and disregard the "wait and try" method i mentioned earlier.
I popped the lid, smells like pea soup and it doesn't look nearly as gross staring in from the top down.
Please note this from the CDC:
Despite its extreme potency, botulinum toxin is easily destroyed. Heating to an internal temperature of 85°C for at least 5 minutes will decontaminate affected food or drink.
Link:
https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/Botulism/clinicians/control.asp
100°C boiling does not destroy botulism spores.
But high temperature destroys the toxin.
So if you follow the CDC recommendation above (make it 10 minutes to be sure), the soup should be safe to eat.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.528568 | 2021-02-16T17:12:03 | {
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